Usually, there's too much going on for me to really mull it over. There's always an empty Word document crying out to be addressed, nights out to dress up for, rude customers to bite my tongue at every weekend whilst behind the tills. My life in Glasgow simply doesn't allow me the time to sit and think "god, you know what? I'm missing it. I really bloody miss Germany"
But I'm going to confess it all now. We are six months gone - half a year - and I am still seriously missing Germany. I even cried about it the other day, and I am famously reluctant to do anything that might jeopardise my meticulously applied mascara.
But there's almost shame attached to how this feels; I'm a military child, I was brought up to not invest meanings into the places we inhabit for such short times. Military children are good at getting over it. We're good at saying "thanks for the memories - but it's time to say our goodbyes"
Home was always less where the heart is, more "where the helicopters are".
So this is unusual. This isn't how it works. I shouldn't be thinking about how much I'm missing all the places I love in Germany as often as I currently do, because leaving places I love behind is all I've ever known. I shouldn't even be thinking about my old home, let alone actively longing for it - let alone ruining my mascara in my real moments of sadness.
Yet, for the past few weeks it's been like this little dull ache in my stomach, like very tame period pain; not particularly interfering nor harmful, but always present and a constant nuisance. When I was in Berlin with my friends last month, I actually had to leave the hostel bar early on the first night - parting from my actual German Jagermeister, the horror of it! - and take a moment to myself in the room. I found it overwhelmingly emotional to be back in this country I loved, but was already anticipating just how hard it would be to leave again.
To be honest, getting over leaving Germany hasn't been the only thing I've struggled with. As the months have passed and I spend my life pretty much exclusively on "civi street", I feel the distinct loss of my identity. It's hard to describe to people on the outside of it all, but I sincerely used to like being able to say I was a padsbrat. Less so because of the whole "proud of our Armed Forces!" rhetoric, but because it was, well, almost like a badge of honour; more of a "see all the shit I've had to go through because of this lifestyle; see how strong it's made me?"
But the past eighteen months or so in Glasgow has taught me to keep my mouth shut regarding that area; to put it bluntly, I've had people make their anti-armed forces stance very clear to me, and perhaps not in the most tactful of ways ("your dad's probably shot someone, how does that feel?") either. I mean, I've always acknowledged that there would be people who absolutely hated them and would have their reasons for it - whatever, I can deal with that. But...for want of something less pathetic sounding to say, that's still my dad those comments are aimed at. That's the man I can't even find the words to describe my love and respect for.
So I've taken to avoiding telling people my dad's profession, because I now see what they might be thinking, and despite my best efforts, I can't help but take it personally. Therefore, the padsbrat in me is keeping very quiet these days; so much so that really, she's hardly there.
I'm still struggling to keep quiet about these intensified feelings of longing and nostalgia, however. Maybe it's something to do with my childish resentment of the fact that I'm flying home to our new base in Yeovil on Sunday - not Dusseldorf airport.
In my original blog written on the night before we moved out of our house last summer, I described how moving away from a place you loved was "like grieving not for a person, but for a life you once had". So I guess this is just how it'll be for a little while longer. I'm still grieving, and don't people say that there's no time frame for this sort of thing? Most of the time it's manageable, certainly, but when the things that remind me of Germany appear in my own little life in Glasgow, I can't help but feel more bothered than usual; like during my German seminar, when I see a man in uniform or hear a helicopter outside as I'm falling asleep.
Yeah. I'd be lying if I said those moments didn't really bother me.
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