Don’t turn around!
On the value of stopping.
This week went a little smoother than the last, I think. On Monday I spent two hours pushing a trolley through Ikea and then the massive, neighbouring grocery store. I had called my mom beforehand to get her insight on meal prepping and general adult skills. I got a lovely, warm desk lamp in the style of an old oil lamp. I swapped out my ceiling lamp with one that diffuses the light much better, so I no longer feel like I am being interrogated in my own room. I even spent a good hour or so cooking myself dinner and meal-prepping two lovely lunches for myself. After all the shopping, peeling, air-frying and fiddling with the breaker-board, I was finished. The work week was great, too. I sat both my bosses down and told them what my plan was to increase the visibility of our online shop, only to find out that I was still overthinking everything (as ever). With that meeting, as well as a team meeting later on in the day, I still managed to photograph two dozen different articles of furniture for our online marketplace. That blows the eighteen pieces I photographed in the whole week prior clean out of the water. Wednesday I sat down with one of the bosses and we ran through all of my responsibilities and tasks within the company, in order of urgency, in excruciating detail. It was excellent! I’ve got a much better understanding of my duties, what I need to focus on, and what I can strive toward.
On Wednesday evening, after I got home, I sat in my room and logged some extra hours behind my laptop. Somewhere close to midnight I shut the lid, got into my pyjamas and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. My new bathroom has two huge windows that look out onto the road in front of the house. My eyes flashed to the lamppost across the street. It was snowing! It must have been since sunset, the snow was already thick on the ground. It continued to snow over Berlin through the night. On Thursday the snow crunched under my feet as I walked to work in the morning. On my return trip in the evening, fresh snowfall stuck in my beard and eyebrows, and wet my backpack and the shoulders of my jacket. By the time I closed my eyes on Thursday night, there was a good foot of powder covering the ground. Perhaps the most snow I’ve yet to experience here in Berlin.
On Friday morning, my girlfriend and I had breakfast together before leaving my house for a snowy, Valentines walk. We sauntered through my new neighbourhood. We passed homes boasting snow-clad roofs and red, wooden shutters. We saw garages and garden benches. We walked past three boys that had a snowball fight in the middle of the road and used the sedans as defensive cover. I am officially back in the suburbs. We pushed past the streets on which pretty houses lived, and continued into a neighbourhood made only of footpaths and pine trees. Through the snowy forest and across one very sleepy road, we found ourselves at the base of a hill. We had to jump a few errant branches and keep ourselves from slipping on the now-melting and partially icy snow. Our efforts lead us to a wooden and concrete staircase that lead up the hill. We began ascending. My girlfriend turned behind her to check that I was following. She saw me, but she saw a glimpse of our view, too. The hill we were climbing is the second tallest in the city, and offers a skyline view of Berlin. She giggled and clapped in anticipation, but I made her promise that she wouldn’t turn around again until we had both reached the top. When we finally got there, the view was great. We saw parts of the city we knew intimately. Parts we couldn’t even name. We had a snowball fight. We built a snowman, his name was Richard.
I didn’t tell my girlfriend to keep her eyes head of her because I wanted her to miss out on the view. I wanted to present it to her in all of its glory. Full and spectacular, not half shrouded by the forest. I wanted us to focus on the climb, keep our feet from slipping, avoid being tripped up by the branches that barely stuck out from under the snow. When we were on top of the hill, though, it would have been foolish not to turn around and enjoy the view, see what our effort had won us. It’s time, I think, to turn around and enjoy the view. Despite the discomfort of establishing a new routine in a new house and a new job, I find myself atop a hill. A mountain, perhaps. For the last two years, I was scratching my head about how I would get to Germany, never mind staying there. The bureaucracy was a giant I was unsure I could conquer. The language, the culture, the apparent lack of opportunities frightened me. For the last three years, I have longed for a nine to five that I was interested in, that payed me fairly. I wanted to build something alongside passionate partners, I wanted to use creative license. Finally, after the climb of a lifetime, I am at a stopping point. It would be a shame not to turn around and admire the view. And maybe chuck a snowball or two at a loved one.
Just because I’m stopping to enjoy the view doesn’t mean that the climb is over, of course. The only question is, which peak is next? If you enjoyed this journal, please subscribe.