Hello friends! I am back today with another in my Impressions from Germany series. If you have been with me since the beginning, thanks. If not, you can catch up here. I have tried throughout this series to link my thoughts and impressions back to the Dimensions of Wellness model I like so much, as I believe assessing health and wellness should not just comprise a physical traits checklist. Today I want to talk about our return to the States and the changes it brought.
We moved out of the country for six months. Everyone knows inherently that the leaving and starting in Germany was a huge routine interruption. But what maybe isn’t so obvious, is that so was coming back home.
Six months is long enough period of time that the “honeymoon phase” newness wore off. We got used to our situation. Because we were living, not vacationing. And I have gone on ad nauseum about some of the changes. But we had to re-figure out our routine when we came back to the States.
Some of the changes we made stuck with us. In these situations, there were enough positives on the pro con list to keep the habits State side. Some of our grocery shopping and meal planning/prepping habits fell into this category. We are creating even less waste (plastic and food) than we had before.
Some of the changes we made we wanted to keep but for some reason were not able to. My husband’s job in Germany was much more simply defined and straight forward than it is here. The European culture also values down time and disconnectedness more than we do here. This resulted in fewer work obligations that needed to be managed outside of working hours.
I think both of us forgot how much gets done outside of “work” hours. To be fair, my husband loves his job and outside work is the nature of being a teacher. But no matter how much we wanted to keep our German habits, we weren’t able to. What we learned from the experience, though, was to re-evaluate what needed to be done and what didn’t. So for our family, work-life balance and time management has undergone a shift even though we couldn’t adopt everything.
I left my part time job to be a full time stay at home parent in Germany. That had implications for my entire family. With my role change, it meant that my husband’s role as husband and father shifted, too. I was mentally prepared for being a full time parent when we left. And in the grand scheme of things, six months is not a terribly long time. My hats off to those of you out there who are dedicated stay at home parents full time. I love my family, but I am the best addition to my family when I get to wear my “Mom” hat, my “Wife” hat and my “Melissa” hat. Because when I get to be “Melissa” at least some of the time, I am the best version of me. So I was very very happy to get back to my part time job when we returned.
My son had the experience of a full time stay at home parent. Which was great for both of us. We were able to bond in ways that we hadn’t before. But it also made his transition back to part time child care more difficult than we anticipated. Thankfully for us, he has great teachers and we knew it would run its course in time, so we just had to be patient.
And, lastly, some changes were always going to revert back. Biking is the biggest one here. We biked everywhere in Germany and grew to really enjoy it. We don’t live in a place where this is possible and even after months back home, this is the one thing we still talk about missing.
Customs and ways of life are different. Not good or bad, just different. And the amazing thing about our experience was that we weren’t vacationing, we were living. We got to fully immerse ourselves in those experiences and then figure out which ones worked for us and we could incorporate back in to our routines at home. Part of Germany will always be with us because of this.
I’ll let you know when I figure out how to bike the 14 miles and 6 mini mountains hills to work, though!
Until next time, be well friends!
