Springtime and New Beginnings

Well, it’s been a while. I know. Do you ever have a few months when everything seems to happen so fast that you don’t know how to deal with anything? Life’s been difficult here, mostly starting around Christmas and then getting progressively worse for a while. One of the reasons that I haven’t really been in touch was that I either didn’t know how or didn’t want to explain things, and I didn’t want to pretend I was doing great. So, in that situation I found it easiest to just say nothing.

Of course, life works in cycles, and it seems like this difficult spell is on the way out. I can breathe again and see the light at the end of the tunnel. Things are better all around…

So, what happened? Lots of stuff. Some public, some personal. Here’s the highlights…

- The German winter is very long, dark and depressing
- I spent my first holidays away from my family and in another country
- A friend of ours from Charleston committed suicide
- My grandmother died and I went back to the States for her funeral
- My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer
- A co-worker went on sick leave for 5 weeks and I took on most of his work
- Gabe and I still hadn’t really found a niche here and were a bit isolated

So, I took a stress questionnaire about my life in the past 2 years and I scored a 908. A score above 300 indicates that one will likely have physical symptoms of stress. Let’s just say that I did and we’ll leave it at that.

However, life has not been completely horrible or anything. It’s the good things that have kept me sane. Gabe and I are doing fantastically well and are really enjoying being married. In fact, that area has been virtually stress free! My mother underwent a double mastectomy and is now cancer free. It was caught early enough that chemo is not needed. I’m starting to settle in a routine at work as I continue to get more responsibility. I recently got a promotion to a GS-12 (which I was in SC but took a downgrade to GS-11 when I came to Germany) and my first project where I’m the lead will begin construction at the end of summer.

Gabe’s doing really well in his classes and has started flying model airplanes. He’s working about 20 hours a week as well. I take German classes twice a week and have been enjoying that. Since we’ve been getting out more we’ve made some more friends and have actually been out to dinner with a number of people.

I’m still getting used to my very independent job. In an office of 4 the social dynamic is limited…quite a change from my last job.

We’ve got a ton of company coming in the next few weeks and the German spring promises to turn into a beautiful summer. Believe it or not, I am attempting to start a garden. Thank goodness Gabe knows about this stuff…he put his old soil-judging skills to work for me recently and explained to concept of growing plants from cuttings. Gardening is the German national pastime, in addition to walking, so I figure it’s a good place to learn!

That’s it for now – I shoved a lot of information into this email J Know that even if you haven’t heard much from me in the past few months you have still been in my thoughts. I’ve had occasion recently to reflect on the good things in my life and one of those is the amazing people I have crossed paths with. Our paths all continue to branch in different directions…but the world is smaller every day.

I’m done waxing poetic for now. Take Care!

Love,

Meghan