Lists.
Checking them more than twice.
Go for a run. Write my girlfriend’s brother-in-law’s birthday card. Make a birthday present for my girlfriend’s university friend. Meet up with a friend of mine and discuss working at his documentary production house. Clean my room. Plan out my newest job application. Download Photoshop. Edit the photographs I took last week. Prepare dinner for my au pair family, whom I now rent a room from, and leave it in the oven to be heated up later. Go and take new photographs at my prospective place of work. Breathe. Call Mom and Dad. Go shopping with my girlfriend for her new hiking rucksack. Celebrate my girlfriend’s brother-in-law’s birthday. Babysit his daughter while he and his wife go on a date. Edit the new photographs I took. Get up early to help out with the au pair kids as a favour to their mom. Go for a run again. Make a social media video as a part of my newest job application. Buy groceries for a family of six. Spontaneously meet with some South African friends in Berlin. Create a presentation for my prospective employers featuring the edited video, new photos and my previous work. Translate the presentation into German. Cook another dinner for the au pair family. Write Jeremy’s Journal.
This is—no joke—my to-do list I had this week. Monday to Thursday. I’ve left out small details and redacted some Christmas related activities that I can’t risk allowing certain readers to read, but this is the gist. With seven thousand things on my plate, I’ve had to exercise the bandwidth of my focus. First, trying my best to conceive of the parameters of each chore before me and trying to put them in the most logical, efficient order. Then, doing my best to entirely forget about the big picture to apply myself to the task at hand, whether that might be photoshopping the imperfections out of my latest photograph or popping into the pharmacy and remembering to get all the vitamins I need (I didn’t). It’s not totally dissimilar to cooking Christmas dinner. You’ve got to peel the potatoes before you chuck the meat on the stove (or on the braai, if you’re lucky enough to have one of those Christmasses this year), and you’ve got to make the pudding the night before, otherwise it won’t set. It’s best to forget all that when you’re chopping the onions, though, if you’d like to keep all your digits. I know it’s a busy time of year. I know I’m not the only one with a full list of things to do.
The days are laughably short in Berlin at the moment. The sun is only up at nine, and it’s pitch black again before four-thirty. One evening this week, when it was already dark outside, I was coming back home from babysitting my girlfriend’s niece. There’s a bridge over the Spree river that I need to cross on my way home from the train station. A hotel a few blocks away had a few of its lights on. A riverside restaurant did, too. They danced on the water. Orange flecks flirted with deep blue swells. The river never still. In the middle of the city, I can’t see any stars. The only lights that glow are in homes and hotels, restaurants and shops. Ordinarily I cross it at a brisk pace, eager to get home. This week I stopped, and took a breath.
When I look back at my year, it echos my to-do list this week. The sheer volume of new experiences I’ve accumulated baffle me. Learning a new language, adapting to German culture, figuring out how to be an au pair and then figuring out what to do next, wrestling with oceans of paperwork, traveling to three new countries, falling deeper in love with my partner, fighting unemployment and the hopelessness that comes with it. Had I seen my year ahead of me, I’m not sure I would have walked into it as willingly as I did. I can’t help but wonder what next year will bring. I will attempt, between the singing carols and drinking Glühwein to reflect on my first full year in Germany, and I will endeavour to dream about what the next one could bring.
Like they say in England, Happy Christmas! And a happy New Year, too! Jeremy’s Journal will be back on the 4th of January.
I used to be so envious of European Christmasses in the movies, and now I wish I could be back home eating Malva Pudding and pork belly. If that’s what your holidays look like, have an extra bite for me! If you enjoyed this journal, please subscribe.