The Dam – Part I

 In March 2023 I had the privilege to make a decision to change my life. After job hunting for months, I landed 2 vastly different roles in 2 different countries. I coincidentally, seemingly fatefully, received the job offers on the same day. It was a decision I wasn’t about to take lightly, and even though I knew in my gut what I wanted, it took some negotiating, researching and convincing to make it.

In 2014, when I boarded a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, I had more faith in humanity and optimism bordering on naivete. I was younger and more foolish than I am now. I was hungry to learn and grow professionally. In 2023, I turn back a little wiser, a little more beaten by life, still hungry to learn and grow. Someone asked me why I decided to leave after having fought so hard to be here. “Because I don’t want to fight so hard anymore”, I answered instantly, the words coming from somewhere deep in my soul before my mind had a chance to think about it. Being a foreigner and woman of colour in the Pale-Male-Stale world of German sport has drained me of my will to fight, to fit in, to conquer. The time has come to leave Germany, and return “home”. To a home that isn’t really even close to how I left it, as someone who isn’t really the same person as when I left. In a way, I am leaving behind a home I built here, to start from scratch again as a new me in a new India. However, this time I will have less hurdles and be at more of a competitive advantage while I do it.

People have been asking me for a few months now how I feel. Since April, after the initial elation and pure relief of having picked a path, for the first time ever in my adult life, I have not been able to define that. “I’m not feeling much”, I’ve said. “I think I am pretty overwhelmed, but I am good”. I thought I simply wasn’t feeling because there has been so much to do.

Packing up a life and home without the help of movers or elevators has been exhausting. The moving project was preceded by the painting project. Apart from a bookshelf, I never painted anything in my life, now I found myself being unjustly forced to paint an entire apartment within a couple of weeks. Whatever potential painting has to be relaxing, in 35 degrees and humid weather, it was lost. I spent an entire day mixing sweat with paint and slathering it in anger across the walls. Let’s not forget about the cleaning and apartment handover. I’ve never made it secret that I not only hate to clean, but I am also not good at it. But I knew that Mr & Mrs Nasty Landlord would scoot under furniture and above doorframes and behind lamps like the lizards they are, so I had to actually get down and scrub. With every passing hour I got more enraged at everything they put me through, wishing that it was their heads I was flushing down the toilet, not the inordinate amounts of dust and hair that were emerging from every corner of my flat. Moving at any point is stressful, but doing it with a revolting landlord hovering overhead and breathing stank fumes over everything is quite another challenge. None of these Herculean tasks could have been achieved without the help of the support system I have gathered here over the years.

I suppose its natural that after the weeks of planning and packing that went into this move, I took some time to just decompress. I stayed with a friend for a few days, before moving into a temporary accommodation. The irony of ironies, as I wait for the paperwork to come through to allow me to make this move.

I recently learnt from a friend that a term I thought I invented, is a legitimate term in the army – i.e. life admin. The weeks before the move were dominated by life admin. I went from applying for jobs to dealing with the bureaucracy that comes with starting a new chapter. Days went by trying to reach HR and Government offices, quitting contracts and signing new ones. While I am quite comfortable thriving in a state of chaos, I have to admit that the large number of moving pieces and variables can be rather exhausting. In the meantime, I tried to plan trips to visit friends and sneak in those last moments while there’s still some time. I visited Paris with the intention of doing Parisian things with my bestie, we talked of going to the opera and art shows. But I suppose activities like hate-watching “Indian matchmaking” and going to “drunch” (drunk brunch) are also very Parisian. Either way, it didn’t matter because it was the very breath of fresh air I needed to celebrate the upturn in my life. Visiting friends in Würzburg after years of putting it off was equally refreshing, except for my stomach which laboured to digest all the spectacular food it was given over 4 days. 

The other major project that has occupied my life since March is fitness. When everything in my life was very dark, and literally all the pieces were falling to the ground around me, I finally decided to get over the fear of covid and go back to the gym. I signed up at the nearest gym without even going to check it out, because I knew I’d put it off if I didn’t do it then and there. My physical fitness fell during and after the pandemic to the lowest it has ever been. I suffered from back pain and stopped working out. I forced myself to go on walks as prescribed by the doctor, but I didn’t enjoy them and they didn’t seem to help much. I was diagnosed with severe vitamin D deficiency, but the supplements didn’t seem to be making any difference. I hated my body more and more, and I felt uncomfortable in it. Now, after 4 months of lots of sweat and some good-pain at the McFit down the road, I feel like a phoenix rising from the ashes. 

Looking back, I realise how much of my physical state was a reflection of my mental state. I was pushing myself at work, I was burnt out and stopped enjoying what I was doing. I went from day to day just waiting for it to end. I woke up the next day without any energy, I hardly went out and met friends. I was broke and used that as an excuse to retreat into my shell. I didn’t write for a whole year. I might have been depressed but I didn’t know it, nor did I feel sad or lonely. It seems a bit like a blur. I did know however that this wasn’t me and it wasn’t how I wanted to live my life. The therapist encouraged me to slow down and recharge my batteries. Apparently, this wasn’t something that came naturally to me, being “Leistungsorientiert”. I punished myself when things weren’t going well, especially professionally, instead of being kind and patient to myself; and trying to find small joys in other walks of life. So I tried to slow down, to see friends, to give myself a break, while also working towards my goals. Therapy also encouraged me to break down everything I disliked about my life into a “problem pie”, and tackle each section practically. It’s a tool I will carry with me for a long time. But the problems were not easy to solve, and they definitely got a lot worse before they got better. At some point, I was in a free fall, both personally and professionally, I cut myself loose from everything. I knew I had to let go to rebuild. It’s the hardest thing I’ve done and I couldn’t be prouder of myself. While things look (cautiously) optimistic now, the personal side is still blurry. But that’s ok because I know that this too shall pass.

Since I was encouraged by a friend to document this move, I have tried to access the emotions that I don’t feel but I know are there. Its strange “feeling” for someone like me, who feels often and feels big, to not feel and not be able to feel. The dam, a perfect metaphor for my current state – it locks down during high water and stops flooding. But the overflow has to be periodically released, otherwise the dam will break. This is me trying to manage the flow of emotions that comes with the decision to leave Germany nearly 9 years after moving here, without letting those emotions drown me.