Ready, Set, No

I'm not ready. I thought I was but I'm not.

I'm not ready to go back home...or rather, I'm not ready to leave home.

Or rather, I'm not ready to leave or go back home because I'm not sure which place is home and which place is not.

I'm not sure which place is home and which place is not because I've not spent more than 3 months in either place before going to the other place since we arrived in Berlin.

Maybe I should stay put in Berlin for a while. I'd be more stable then, at least physically. That would make perfect sense, right?

The confusion and discomfort I feel in my homeland and my Deutschland is perfectly normal I'm told. It's my mind's way of making sense of my new life. It's my minds way of preparing me to establish a new home, a new comfort zone, a new normal.

I am reminded of the phrase "codeswitching" which is loosely defined as the one's ability to adjust one's diction/language/attitude/personage based on one's setting. You codeswitch at work, for instance, when you in one moment speak comfortably with your friends in slang on one phone line and on the next, speak the king's english with a business client without so much as a second thought. As much as codeswitching relies on the users ability to judge when and whether it's appropriate to assume the role of casual friend or respectable colleague, it also requires the user to be able to switch between those roles effortlessly. I'm not doing such a good job of this as an expat. I haven't figured out how to integrate the confident, articulate American in Georgia with the shy, neurotic foreigner in Berlin. Two parts of myself are trying to fight it out and over the course of the next 6 months I hope the former self emerges.

Being back in Atlanta has reminded me that she is still there, she wants to join me in Germany. She has friends here in the states--really amazing ones, in fact--so who's to say she can't make them overseas. She was a darn good employee on this side of the pond so why can't she be, at least a part-time one, in Berlin. But hey, she's tired of getting bested by the foreigners sidekicks--Fear, Second-guessing, and Self-consciousness. She's ready to protect me from the what-ifs by taking the risks necessary to become comfortable in my own skin again. She's ready even if I'm not so sure I am.

So, here's my plan. I'm going to continue to remind myself that this is a journey, not a destination. It's just a moment in time. I'm going to give myself permission to make mistakes. I'm going to fight the temptation to prematurely judge people and accept more invitations to interact with people, even if I think I have nothing in common with them. I'm going to savor every minute of book club and bible study. I'm going to go to yoga (alot). I'm going to pray (even more). And I am going to resolve to be happy. I am going to be happy. Damnit, I'm going to be happy. happy. Happy.

Shoot, that sounded like a resolution, didn't it? No turning back now.