Never say never. Never!
I have no more fingers on my hands or feet to count the times when I have felt like lady Universe listened up close to the plans I was making either in my head or out loud and started rolling on the floor laughing, mumbling under her breath, “just you wait!”
After a year and a half in the land of Hans Christian Andersen, the ugly duckling realized she was not a swan. More so, all the efforts in trying to make herself a swan felt like the Chinese molding of feet and resulted in crippling exhaustion, a feeling of displacement and deep, deep disconnection. From everything, most importantly herself. So she concluded that, by any other name, she is still a duckling and returned to her pond. After all, it was indeed the only pond she knew.
Here we are again, back in a Romania we chose this time, a new house but same crowds, wiser (maybe … ), older (in more ways than one), at the beginning of yet another road. As friends of mine who know more than me have taught me, change happens instantaneously and transition takes a long time, so that is where my family and I are now.
Transitioning to the country of birth is challenging from many reasons. We were not gone for too long a time but it seems to have been long enough to get unaccustomed to things we used to be able to just let be. As we tried to fit our round pegs into the square holes of another country, this one changed and we now have some catching up to do. Fun!
What happened? Life did. Relocation is a complex endeavor, especially when it involves an entire family, when we are not that young anymore and when one does not embrace the lessons that they preach. I cannot speak on behalf of my family, we each have our stories to tell or not tell but if I look back and wonder what happened to me, I can see some definite stumbles that had me on my knees by the time I decide to turn around.
Contrary to everything I learned before we left, I chose to “become a Dane.” Which is all nice and great if you are not in fact a Romanian. My inability to hold two truths at the same time: that I was a Romanian who relocated and someone who was hoping to become the citizen of another country, pushed me to try my hardest to discard everything I was, move too fast through learning a language that was not easy, immerse myself in traditions and ideas I did not necessarily embrace or feel close to my heart.
I was afraid that the feeling of missing the people I left behind would deter me from the purpose I had set for myself and therefore I turned my back to my past completely. In one and a half years I only visited my family for 10 days and those were packed with various appointments. Anything not to sit down, look my parents in their (older) eyes and admit that it is hard to be away. What would that have been if not a failure? And yes, we tell our kids that failure is good but … not for me, right?
The higher the price, the higher the fear of making a mistake. When we left in 2023, there was nothing material that we owned in Romania any longer. No home, no car, nothing. We looked only ahead and were ecstatic about what we anticipated coming. When we looked each other in the eye and realized it is not working for us and decided to return to home base, we were relieved that there was a “home” to go back to. And this is how I learned again a lesson I forget every day: that two things which are apparently opposed can be true at the same time. That our excitement existed and was real and that our desire to go back home and experience the “known” and our feeling of relief around that was real as well. And that both are ok to feel.
So, here we are again. At an end and another beginning. I feel like a portal has opened for me again and I am entering it equal parts curious and tired. I know this is another opportunity lady Universe is offering me to learn more about myself and grow and at the same time, I just want to yell at her “I am tired! Let’s pause the learning for a while!” But where would the fun be then? And would she really listen?
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