Permission slip.
It took a peer coaching session yesterday to realize how much sadness has been living just under the surface. My classmate gently asked “what would it look like to give yourself space?” and the answer was almost immediate. The tears that I have been busying away finally rose up and pushed through. I reached for the tissues tucked to the side of my computer just in case the session, which I was using to figure out how I might leave Brussels feeling like this chapter is complete, stirred something.
Later in the afternoon, tender and more aware, I heard myself telling a group of girlfriends back in Minnesota that I was in “a grief-y place.”
(Aren’t we all?)
There’s a tension in this time between here and there. Excitement as the preparations get underway. Relief for the things that I won’t miss. Sadness for the things I will and already am. And a hard-to-define longing for those that I’ll never have the chance to.
I can’t quite delineate which strains are the normal expat experience — those born from the coming and going — and which are unique to now. Or maybe it’s that the pandemic amplifies everything (or perhaps it’s the other way around)?
My grief feels both singular and common all at the same time. I hear similarities in the words of friends and strangers who have never left. I feel the difference of being one of the ones who has.
As I gave myself some space, I realized that it wasn’t just the inconvenience of sorrow that has had me avoiding it. It’s the guilt I feel for having it in the first place. I have lived the last year in the privilege of security and minor losses. And packing up our home here was always a given; we came knowing that we would always be leaving. Who am I then to grieve?
I began to see that I had set up a false truth in my head: that my sadness somehow diminished or dismissed another’s. And when I swapped in joy as a proxy, I realized just how silly it was to believe that having some of my own would take away from anybody else’s.
So I gave myself permission. To finally feel what’s been bubbling underneath. To recognize that there have been and will still be some losses. To name them:
Things I’ve already been missing
Hugging friends. Trips across the border to buy sausages at Kaufland and mineral water in heavy-duty return bottles at Trinkgut. Planning and leading group hikes for the embassy community. Book club in living rooms instead of over Zoom.
Things I will miss
The smell of Nicolas’s teachers’ perfume in his hair at the end of the day and the happiness of knowing he is well-loved. Walks in the Sonian Forest. 10pm sunsets at midsummer. Lunches with Joe on teleworking days. The commiseration, encouragement, and advice shared on the English-speaking expat moms Whatsapp group.
Things I never got the chance to miss
Deep friendships with the other parents in our birth prep class. Watching my mom hold her newborn grandson. The weekend road trips we bought the nice travel crib for. Playdates with other babies and their mamas.
I’ve heard it said that we don’t really move on from grief but that we move through it. Perhaps that’s what this is — moving through. And I think I’ve finally written myself the permission slip to begin.
