Stuff.

So, would you like to hear a funny story?  Actually, I’d better qualify that statement, because it’s not really very funny (in fact, it’s rather long and a bit heavy) so I wouldn’t want you to get your hopes up and then have them dashed.  However, this not-so-funny story does begin with some really big news, so are you ready?  (I know… what big news could I have when I already just announced I am pregnant?  No I am NOT having twins (unless the doctor missed that in the ultrasound, which I highly doubt), so what could it possibly be??)

We are staying in Switzerland for the next few years!!!!

Yes, I realize I already presented this news quite a while ago—in April, to be exact, but it’s still actually new news.  Let me explain.   No, there is too much, let me sum up (name that movie).  Okay, I really will explain.  Remember when back here in July I was talking about a house we loved that we wanted to rent?  Well, the lady actually DID call us back and we went again, I think basically so she could see us again and have her daughters meet us.  We walked through the entire house again.  Did I mention it had lots of room, a great kitchen, more bedrooms, another bathroom, a huge attic, a cellar, its very own washing machine!, an apple tree, a pear tree, an AMAZING view of the mountains AND two lakes!!!!, and was very affordable for such a great place?  About the only drawback we could come up with was that it was in a such a tiny little village that the kids would have to go to school in the next tiny village over, so they would have a much longer walk and perhaps need to be driven to school.  Anyway, we figured we could work that out.  So, she had emailed Brett and wanted to see one more form and to know if we would be willing to take two of her cats, and then I think everything would have been set. 

HOWEVER.  Right before Brett emailed her back to confirm everything, I got cold feet.  Not just of the house—the house was fantastic—but I told Brett we had to talk (always scares him to death) and asked if we could possibly reopen the consideration to move back to the U.S.  Truthfully, at first he was a bit upset, which was pretty justified, as we had just gone through the whole decision process a few months ago.  But I asked him just to think about it, and shortly—I mean, within a matter of a day and a half—he said, okay, let’s do it.  He called the lady and told her we had changed our minds about the house.  He started looking for jobs that very night, and he said that even if he didn’t get a job quickly, he would still like to move to the States in April, because 1- he wouldn’t want to hang around being a lame duck, and 2- our rental contract is really weird, and if we don’t leave in October or April, we’re responsible for paying for it until new renters are found.  Plus interviewing for jobs would theoretically be easier if he’s more available to get to them. 

I was soooooo elated.  I knew that just because we got a job in the States wouldn’t mean that it would be exactly where we would like it to be, and we may end up very far away from family still, and somewhere not at all ideal, etc.  but I was still so excited.  I felt like even though we have a lot of good things going here in Switzerland, I was ready for NEW things, and being on the right continent would be, after all, a step in the right direction (towards getting a little closer to family).  And I can’t even explain how knowing that we were going to be leaving soon just changed all of my thought processes.  It’s not so sad going without something—Halloween, or cub scouts—if you know it will only be for a short time longer.  I was already changing my plans about what to get the kids for Christmas, what I would like my brother and his wife to bring to me when they come in October.  Just, so many things were exciting to me. 

And then, Brett told his boss, which he had been dreading a bit (for again, we had just made this decision a couple months ago), but his boss was really super nice about it and supportive and wanted to help him with his job searching and everything.

So, this was all maybe a week, week-and-a-half.  Long enough to tell the kids—they were THRILLED (of course, I think they think that moving to the States means moving to Grandma’s house, or at least next door to some of their cousins), long enough for me to call my sister-in-law Lindsay Ann and gush the happy news, and since a lot of the rest of my family was in Canada for a family reunion, I told her to spread the news when she went up. 

And THEN Brett came home one night and said, “Guess what.  [My boss’s name] talked to me today.”  (Suddenly my stomach dropped.)  They offered Brett a pretty considerable raise if he would stay and be a part of the forging of the company.  Enough money so that we would be able to take a visit home every year if we wanted to.  I was like—WHY?  Why did it have to become difficult AGAIN?!?!

Now, if it were JUST money, whatever.  But the thing is, Brett really does want to stay and see this company-and all of the work he’s done the last 3 years- through, and the kids are happy and content and learning, and I’m MOSTLY happy and content.  That is to say, on weekends and vacations.  So really, moving back to the U.S. was just for me, so this second (third?) chance to decide was just… arrrrgh.

You see, I’m pretty much a textbook case of Expat-Wife Syndrome.  The family moves to a different country, the husband has a job to keep him busy and involved, the kids have school and new friends to keep them busy and involved, and the wife gets dull and lonely.  Now, it’s not always as bad as that sounds, but really, during the week I DO get lonely; it boils down to that.  My ward is WONDERFUL and I really like lots of women in it, but almost all of them work or live too far away to get to, or have their own things they’re involved in or whatever it is to spend any time with them during the week.  And Brett works SOOOOO MUCH.  I usually don’t see him before I get up at 7:00 or so, and while I used to want him to call if he was going to be home later than 6:30, now it’s more like he should call if he WILL be home by then, as that’s the more unlikely.  So by about Wednesdays, I just feel… kindof ragged.  So I wanted to move to the States where even if we were far away from family, and in a place we never would have picked, at least I could SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE as some other women and occasionally TALK and HAVE CONVERSATIONS with them.  (Now I have to say that when I lived in Indiana in a college town with a ton of other women in the same stage-of-life/situation as me, and there were tons of opportunities to get together, from play-groups to aerobics to book clubs and womens-night-outs, etc. etc., I often thought it was a bit overdone, and I would really feel it unnecessary to go to three-fourths or more of them.  I just want to say, you don’t know how important it is for women to have SOME kind of conversation with other women fairly often until you don’t have any.  (I realize there are some very introverted/hermitish women out there who defy this, but in general it is true and scientifically backed up.  I don’t know how women on the prairies in the old days did it, without phones or blogs or anything.  Some of them did actually did go crazy, you know.))

Also, sometimes it’s just a bit WEIRD living here.  In some ways it is so temporary, and after all, when we came out we had a 2-year-contract, and so that was what I was prepared for.  I could do without a lot of things for that amount of time.  (I just recently remembered how back years ago, when Brett and I would talk about someday moving to Switzerland (without a lot of real belief that it would ever happen, on my part), I would say ‘one year’ and Brett would say, ‘no, five’ and I would say- ‘NO.  Two at the most—only two.’  Why is Brett always RIGHT?!)  And it’s weird in just little ways too, like the fact that Hazel doesn’t know how to spell in English, and Jethro’s learning piano, but he won’t know any of the terms like ‘treble cleff’ or ‘quarter note’ or anything in English- he’ll only know the German words.  I mean, mostly I’m used to living here, but every once in a while something just REMINDS you how weird it really is.

So, there we were, back at square one.  Only, it’s just so aggravating to have to be going through it all AGAIN.  (Rather reminiscent of our decision to come out here in the first place- first we thought we would get the job for sure and were really excited, then we didn’t, so then we changed our minds and got excited for staying close to family for once, and then unexpectedly they offered the job to us so we had to adjust our thinking all over again.)  I was pretty saddened and didn’t really want to give in to staying, but I just kindof felt like it was futile.  Also, I called a friend of mine who is a very very wise woman, and she told me about how where she lives, there are also not very many- like none- other moms who can get together with her, and how she thinks it’s very important for a guy to really like his job, and how life is a lot the same wherever you go- you get the kids breakfast, you clean up breakfast, you get them off to school, you make lunch, you clean up lunch, etc.  And deep down I knew this—life is life and it has it’s ups and downs (although I still do believe that even though in such situations it doesn’t FEEL like she’s having good talks with other women, I bet she still does a bit more than she thinks, like with the librarian who recognizes you and your kids, or the neighbor down the street who will exchange a few brief hello and how are you’s, whereas if you didn’t speak the language, you don’t even really get that). 

Anyway, we’re staying.  Although we lost the house, and that’s a real drag.  Now, I just read a friend’s blog post about how she finds it frustrating when she hears people saying how they hate living where they live, and how she backs the philosophy “Bloom where you are planted.”  Now I agree 100% with that, but I was going through all this because it was a choice, and as long as it’s a choice, why not go where you think you’ll be happier?  And anyway, you can’t actually ALWAYS be happy.  But I do need to be more proactive, making sure I’m doing things that will promote a better attitude, like getting outside every day, calling up the women that are home and trying to see them more, those kinds of things.  Also I sure wish I could SOMEHOW figure out a way to get Brett home earlier in the day.  Like this week, on Monday he came home at the usual 6:30ish time, Tuesday he had a dinner thing for work and wasn’t home until about 10, Wednesday he had bishopric stuff, so he wasn’t home for dinner or bedtime, and tonight he had more meetings or something for work, and he’s not home and it’s 10.  The funny thing is, mostly we are happy on weekends, and you’d think that if we don’t really see each other during the week the relationship would stay at that happy-level, but actually somehow it deteriorates, so that we have to repair it before it’s back to the happy level again.  That’s pretty much me, because instead of being more happy and welcoming when he finally does get home, I am kindof bitter and stand-offish.  Gotta work on that.  Sooo, that was a tangent.

Well.  We’re staying, so now instead of looking at the list of things I feel like I’m missing out on (seeing family, being able to read the notes from my kids’ teachers, libraries with more than 12 books in English, mint-chocolate chip icecream, scouts for Jethro, etc.) I just need to look at the list of awesome things about living here ( the really great opportunity for our kids to be bilingual (starting out on trilingual, unless you count Swiss German as it’s own language, in which case they’re already trilingual), really cool trips to places we would ordinarily never go, raclette for dinner, different customs such as Fasnacht, hiking the Alps, Waldspielgruppe, etc.). 

Okay, I have to now make it clear that I know my problems are really small (and I know maybe a lot of people are like, Oh, you have to live in Switzerland- you poor baby!!)—it’s not health problems, fertility problems (you’ll notice), employment issues, custody issues, or a multitude of other things that I would classify as WAY WAY WAY harder than my own small concerns.  And I really am blessed, in sooooo many ways.

So cheers for staying in Switzerland!

p.s. My new goal is to look as awesome as these guys when I hike:

 

ETA: And oh yes—I forgot to mention how very very ironic all this will be if the the company doesn’t get funding, and we obviously wouldn’t be staying after all.  We won’t know that for sure until December (although there’s only a pretty tiny chance that it wouldn’t get funded).