Can she bake a cherry pie...

Well I now consider it official, summer is on its way. Despite the fact that I still need a sweater because the Dutch weather is basically cold! And despite the fact that my allergies tell me it is still in the middle of spring. Today I found the sign that tells me that warmer, sunnier days are definitely on their way...cherries! Beautiful, dark and bright, rich, florid-, scarlet-, crimson-, claret-, magenta-, vermilion-, titian-, maroon-, garnet-, wine-, cardinal-, burgandy-, ruby- and camine- red-colored fruits, fresh from the orchards. It used to be that strawberries were my heralds of summer. But nowadays it seems with the innovations of greenhouses and artificial environments, those berries can be found almost year-round. And something is lost in them. Rarely these days do you find a container of strawberries that exude the essence of the sun they have captured.

But cherries are still grown on trees, in orchards and still need sunlight to ripen. And that sun, even though it may shine in a different time zone (the ones I found today I think are from Israel) not only turns them those luscious colors, and sweetens them with a natural taste that can't compare to any chemical flavorings that science can come up with, but it also sends a promise...warmer days are coming!


I did think about baking a pie, but a kilo doesn't seem to last very long around here. Maybe I need to go to the market again tomorrow...

Home is Where the Heart Is

There come times in the life of every ex-pat when you get so "homesick" that it could almost be diagnosed as depression. I use the plural here, because it happens more than once, and each time is different and calls for a different "cure".

For new arrivals who are just settling in, the first bout hits about 6 weeks into their new adventure. That's about when the "new" wears off and the supplies from home start to run out and suddenly there are the cravings for familiar favorite foods or TV programs or toiletries or even toilet paper! Kids are whiny and cranky but usually easily distracted by a special treat or outing and they will usually recover within 24 hours. Adults generally need a good "moan" (to use the British term) where they can bend a friend's ear about how ridiculous they find the rules/food/TV programs/prices/traffic/weather/etc. in their new home. With this remedy allowing them to vent their frustrations, they too can recover in a day or so. If, however, their friend happens to be back "home", the the remedy will only prolong the suffering as they will not really get the release they need and often will end up feeling even worse after such a conversation. So the tip here is: If you are feeling homesick during the first 3 months of your ex-pat status, DO NOT CALL HOME!! Instead find another ex-pat who has been here a bit longer and pour out your heart. I promise, you will feel better for it.

Subsequent bouts of homesickness will occur over the next 18 months, but generally none will be as severe and during these times it will often help to touch base with the folks back home to find out that you are not missing as much as you thought you were. Some families even return for a visit during this time and find out that they have already adapted to their new ex-pat lives so well that they have things they really like about living in their new country. In fact, this can be a fairly idyllic phase, allowing the ex-pat to appreciate the things about the new life while still cherishing a lot about "home". If departure for home occurs at this time, it will be with a small amount of relief, few regrets, and a lot of good memories. Most of the frustrations will get lost in the mist of time and chaos of new adventures and there will generally be no lasting bad impressions.

However, after about 2 years in a foreign land, an ex-pat starts to find that things they have been a bit irritated about or disliked slowly become true annoyances and points of contention. It usually starts out slow, with a build-up of frustration over a number of small things, but at some point it becomes a real rage accompanied by tears, curses, angry tirades and outbursts often at some undeserving target and it is not really as recognizable as "homesickness" until one gets down to the real root cause of the anger and discovers the pain. In the depths of one of the meltdowns, the sufferer will inevitably utter the phrase "I want to go home..." at which point it becomes clear: Phase 2 Homesickness is in full manifestation.

For those ex-pats who can see the end of their exile coming within a year or so, such an interlude can usually be suffered through with the promise of relief circled in red on a calendar. Kids can be helped by getting to actually count down the days until they know they will be back on familiar territory. Adults can be ameliorated by mass quantities of alcohol and/or chocolate, and phone calls to friends and family where they make plans for when they have returned to the fold.

But there are those ex-pats who face a longer term of re-location, possibly with no definable end in sight. For these poor suffering souls, the "homesickness" can take on new depths and can last for up to a month. While the standard remedies mentioned above do provide some relief, they are not sufficient. A higher level of intervention is required, namely: "Find home where you are." By this I mean that those cravings that have been suppressed, those longings and the feelings that you are missing out on "life", those deep urges for your "native culture" need to be met in some fashion. I have a few suggestions for this:

1. Find other ex-pats from your home country, preferably some familiar with where you were living, and spend some time with them.
   
2. Eat comfort foods you grew up with. This may mean paying the high prices for ingredients that you find in ex-pat shops (I mean $3.50 for Kraft macaroni and cheese?!!) but consider it as medicine rather than food.
   
3. Have your family and friends back home send you care packages including the local newspaper, Sunday comics, books, magazines, favorite cereals and candy, special treats that you have been missing.
   
4. Put together photo albums of your ex-pat life including pictures of things that are so different and unusual that the folks back home would not believe it without seeing it. As an alternative, you can blog about it some of your experiences or write in a journal or newsletter home. Taking yourself out of the experience to look at it as an observer will help to relieve some of the tension that has built up from living it.
   
5. Watch TV programs from your home country. Search them out on the internet, or rent video compilations. Even if all you can find is local news programs online, get yourself a good dose of your home culture and daily life. If you can't find TV, then read newspapers from home or magazines or watch an old movie you saw originally when you were home. Indulge yourself, get immersed in it, recall the feelings of being "home". And if all else fails,
   
6. Go somewhere else for a while. Take a long weekend or a week vacation in a different country. Experience anew the uncertainty and frustrations of a foreign country and you will come back to appreciate how well you have adapted to your adopted home.

A word of caution here: Despite how tempted you may feel to run back "home" to try and relieve your symptoms, this solution usually will only backfire and cause your misery on returning to your ex-pat life to be compounded. So while a trip to a different country can help, a trip to the home country will usually only make things worse and cause the homesick period to last a lot longer.

After more than three years as an ex-pat, the bouts of homesickness come at random and sometimes unexpected intervals, but primarily they are mild and can be headed off with one or more of the suggestions above. But...

Every once in a while, something will happen to trigger a very serious episode where thoughts of just chucking everything and running back to your "old familiar life" become almost overwhelming. And even after living overseas for over 23 years now, I find myself succumbing to this sickness and thinking totally irrational thoughts. And the really ridiculous part is I have lived as an adult overseas now for longer than I have lived as an adult in what I still somehow consider "home". But there is no explaining that to one's heart.

The trigger for this, ironically, was our quick trip back home to visit family during the May break. We only had 13 days, and that was already taking DD1 out of school for 3 days. But after traveling time and jet lag there were only about 10 days and despite cramming in an activity or visit almost every day, it wasn't enough. I barely got to gab with my best girlfriend, I didn't get to visit more than 15 mins total with my sister-in-law, I was limited to a lunch visit with my best guyfriend and his family and a quick overnight trip to see my favorite cousin. I feel like I hardly had any time with my Mom. And of course because I was traveling with my family, I did not get to overindulge (like 3 or 4 times) in eating my favorite foods, or have a chance to just gab and gossip without being constantly interrupted, or do any real shopping (the trips to Walmart to stock up on necessities and groceries with family in tow DO NOT COUNT!!). And it rained almost every day so I did not even get to experience the usually warm Texas weather. In short, despite being "home" I did not get to feel "at home". It was, like all vacations for mothers accompanied by their families, a short period of intense stress and chaos and with very little downtime.

And instead of feeling like I was recharged by my visit, I came back uneasy and irritated and mad at all the daily life irritations that I usually just ignore. I hate the traffic. I can't find anything that I want to cook or eat. I absolutely despise the weather and can't seem to get warm enough, despite it already being June. There is nothing I want to see on TV. I can't even stand the songs on the radio. And I am so tired of speaking a danged foreign language I cannot tell you. I find myself becoming stubborn and critical of everything and almost paralyzed at starting anything. I don't sleep well at night, and I am tired and cranky during the day, and I am generally just a miserable person to be around these days.

So I find myself following all my best advice, indulging in moan-fests, eating comfort foods, catching up on American sitcoms on the internet (including programs I don't really follow regularly but have heard about), pouring over US magazines that I rarely even glance at on the newsstands, and still I find myself angry and depressed and frustrated and generally just hating my life.

Therefore I have finally "broken the emergency glass" and booked a trip back home, alone, for 3 weeks, did I mention by myself? Now if I can only hold out until 10.July without driving everyone around me crazy, maybe I will recover enough to come back and I won't have made everyone so mad here that they will actually be glad to have me come back.

"...If you’re traveling with a child, place your mask on your face first, then assist your child.”

"...put on your own oxygen mask before attempting to help those around you." If you have ever travelled on an airplane, you have heard those words or other similar emergency instructions. And if you are like me, you have listened to them and known they made sense. And Oprah has had various shows counseling the wisdom of such advice in other situations, the message being "Look after yourself first so that you can be in better shape to take care of others."

But whoever wrote those words obviously was not a mother. Sorry Oprah, I know you mean well, but until you have been a parent, you don't know what you are talking about. Or maybe you do, as I don't know the sacrifices you would be willing to make for your 4-footed babies.

It isn't just the daily interruptions: answering questions while we are on a phone call, missing our favorite TV programs in order to calm last-minute homework meltdowns, interrupting our bath ritual to stop a squabble between siblings, letting our kids have the last cookie or finish the ice cream telling ourselves we don't really need the dessert, forgoing that pair of shoes for ourselves so that we can afford to give our offspring that wardrobe item that would break our budget.

But tell me what mother, what parent for that matter would deny their child blood, bone marrow, kidney, lung liver, skin.... anything that could be given that would help their child in need. The costs in money, health, emotional distress, job security or anything else be damned.

We all do it. We consider it part of the job as a parent. You give yourself to your children and pay no attention to the toll it takes. And even when you do know, when you realize that you are on your last nerve, you are draining your batteries, that what you are doing or what your child is putting you through is raising your blood pressure, aging your body, greying your hair, making you a nervous wreck, driving you crazy...do you stop?

I don't know how you answer that question for yourself. I know that everyone has their own limits. But for me, as long as I hold out hope that whatever I am doing, all that I am going through, all the frustration and stress and worries and tantrums and breakdowns will eventually lead to a better life for my child and a light at the end of the tunnel (even if I can't see it), means that I will sacrifice myself, my health, my sanity, my self esteem, my happiness whatever it takes.

And make no mistake, dealing with a teenager means you sacrifice a lot. Dealing with a troubled teen means the cost can be very dear. Which is to say that my health is suffering. Weight problems, blood pressure issues, fatigue, listlessness, mood swings, low resistance to every germ and virus that comes around, etc. And while I know what causes it, and what I need to do about it, I have not yet gotten to the point where I can "put on my own mask first".

I know I need to. I plan to. One of these days I will. Soon. I promise. But right now I just don't come first. I blame Mother Nature.

Getting back on the horse...

I know. I've been gone. A while. Sorry. It was a lot longer than I expected. But tbh I just have not had the energy to do more than hold my life together with chewing gum and baling wire (at least that's how we fix things in Texas and that's how I feel like I've been surviving so far).

But if a life crisis has drawn me away from blogging, a mini-crisis has drawn me back. You see, I am losing one of my best mates here. And while we have not had the almost daily interaction that we once had as she already left me once to move a 40+ min drive away, I did get to see her on a regular basis and now I face the prospect that this will no longer be the case. And believe me I am kicking myself that I did not make more of the time in the past year to avail myself of her physical presence. Most of you readers know her just from the virtual world. I was blessed to play with her IRL. And believe me, you come away with your face hurting from smiling, your sides hurting from laughing, and your perspective on the world slightly askew just because she has made you see things in a different way.

One of the things she has opened my eyes to since I have known her is just how much my life here as an ex-pat is different from what it would be in the US. Her blog has basically been about her own experiences here and I identified with her a lot and also saw so much more of how I have adapted to my surroundings after 20+ years overseas. Some things are very frustrating and are part of the usual rants that ex-pats share when they get together. Others are very unique and enriching experiences that add so much to our lives.

So while I can in no way follow in the footsteps of my dear Jenn, one of the things she has taught me is that maybe I too have "Something to Say...".

So if you are here my dear readers.... "she's back!!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Out of the mouths of babes....

During our recent visit to Texas, my Netherlands-born children made some very astute observations about how different it is to the country they live in.

• DD2 said, "Mom, in Holland they have their flowers in the fields but in Texas they have them on the sides of the road and in the middle." For those of you who have not experienced Texas in the springtime, you don't know what you are missing!

• DD1 observed, "In the Netherlands and Germany you can always tell which buildings are the churches, they are always decorated and built different. But in Texas they all look like the Walmart." While she is not completely correct in her observation, her comment is a lot closer to the truth than I had realized. I didn't point out to her that Walmart is often where families go on Sunday instead of church...

• DD2 asked, "Mom, how come the cows in Texas are only one color?" Tbh, this is something I would have never noticed!

Missing...No Action

Yes, I am still here. Thanks for asking. Hugs and lovely thoughts to all those who have sent messages and prayers my way. I just stalled out and crashed for a bit.

There came a point in the crises where I have had to do everything I could not to lose it. The energy to rant and curse and fight just ran out, the tears dried up, and numbness and shell-shock set in. I've been going through the motions and doing the daily tasks and yet felt there was no real "life" to any of it, although unfortunately, this is my reality.

My friend Jenn's post kind of brought home to me why I have had such trouble talking about this. While in my daily life I can put on a mask and make the small talk and attempt to follow normal social conventions, in this blogsphere I use the anonymity to allow for honest, unvarnished openness. And for a while now the pain of the various struggles has been such that I could hardly bear to look at it myself, much less share it with others.

I am ok. We are ok. But finding the new "normal" is taking some time. I will be sporadic in the posts for a bit. I have lots I want to say and share and happier times to cheer myself and others on with. But the energy levels are still pretty low.

But summer is coming. It seems to take forever in this part of the world. But it is, like healing and acceptance, inevitable.

Warmest heartfelt wishes to you all. Thanks for not forgetting about me!

Where Life's Entropy Has Stalled Me...

...Limbo.

Can't find words for what's going on? Maybe just one will do! Come play along at Jenn's place!

I don't want to talk about it...

As part of the diagnostic process for DD1, we are making the rounds of the various "experts". So far, not counting the school doctor and the family doctor, I have seen 5 different specialists. And we are not through yet. Some of them meet with DD1 by herself, some with DD1 and myself, some with just me or DH, and some with all 3 of us.

And while they all have their own specialization and different items to focus on, and we have now filled out 3 different ratings questionnaires, for the most part they all have the same general kinds of questions. These cover not only DD1's problems, behaviour, childhood, friends, social life, etc., but also babyhood, pregnancy, health and..., and ..., and.... And then of course you get into my biography. And DH's biography. And family medical history.

Invariably, at some point in these conversations, there will be something asked that brings me to tears. It's not that hard these days I admit, with everything we have going on. But still, I wonder if all these folks are putting together a picture of our family that says "Poor kid. Dad is pretty calm but Mom is an emotional wreck. No wonder she is so messed up."

As the "primary caregiver", I am the one who has most of these appointments, even though DD1 has the problem. At least that's what I think. She, of course, has a different point of view and thinks that I am the one with the problem and she should be left alone. The thing is, since I am the one doing most of the talking with these folks, I am starting to doubt my own sanity...

Generally I am pretty talkative. I usually have something to say. (You may have noticed this if I have posted comments on your blog!) But all of a sudden I am all talked out. I feel like I have brought every skeleton in my and my family's closet out in the light. By now these people know most of our deep dark secrets, even ones we had almost forgotten.

And unlike on my blog, there is no anonymity. I sit in front of them and answer their questions and tell the tales of incidents I have tried to erase from memory and put behind me. And now my everyday reality is filled with confronting and thinking about things that I would rather not.

And this is not a healing process. They take their notes, hand me a tissue and go on with their questions. There are no hugs. No kind words of support. No sympathies and similar stories exchanged. No one to tell me it will be alright. So far they have not been judgmental. But of course I look back on my parenting mistakes and my offspring's meltdowns and feel despair and shame and defeat.

Some friends have advised that I get some sort of medical intervention for myself. But I am afraid that if I go down that road before we've gotten the solution for my beloved daughter, then I will be too tempted to not come back to reality. My reality is not pleasant. There are some days when it is hardly bearable. I long for my pillow and covers and an alternate reality.

So if I am only lurking these days, please forgive me. I do read on occasion and cry and laugh and enjoy my blogging world. But if I'm not commenting or blogging then please know, for the momment, I have nothing left give.

I've not talked about it here because right now, I don't want to talk anymore.