One more year.

What to do when your bully is you.

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I hit a big milestone this week. I’ve been trying to find work in Germany for the last six months, and after hundreds of rejection emails and fruitless applications (actually hundreds, this isn’t hyperbolic), I can breathe a thankful sigh of relief. About a month ago I signed a year long contract to au pair for a German family, all of whom seem wonderful. The family is very accommodating; my residence is sorted, I’ll be going to language school to improve my German and I’ll be walking distance from my girlfriend’s flat. Practically every concern I’ve managed to think up has been met with a solution that surpasses my expectations. My granny would say that I’ve landed with my bum in the butter. Once I signed the au pair contract, I began working on my visa application. It turned out to be significantly more fiddly than I had envisioned and after weeks of research, a few confusing phone calls, writing a German language exam, requesting a small mountain of documents from my host family and compiling several more of my own, I finally showed up for my interview this week. The woman who processed my paperwork was kind and enthusiastic and settled my nerves, we chatted about old cities I should visit once I’m over there. All that’s left to do now is wait for my visa to be approved. Which is proving tougher than expected. It’s quite a shock: the endlessly complex, emotionally and financially draining task that I’ve focussed on for the last half a year is finally behind me. Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to celebrate yet.

As I read through my visa application form to prepare for my interview, it was made abundantly and painfully clear to me that my au pairing visa is strictly limited to one year. Were I looking for an interesting way to spend a year abroad, this news wouldn’t be so harsh, but the one year limit breaks my heart. My girlfriend is German, her life is there and for the foreseeable future, so is mine. The big goal I’ve been working towards isn’t finding a bigger salary or having access to better travel opportunities or setting off on a new adventure, I’m trying to be in the same city as the woman I love. The rest: the rewards, the challenges, the opportunities, it’s all noise. I’ve had an idea on the back burner that could possibly secure me a second year in Germany, but some recent developments have undermined my confidence in the plan. Nothing seemed to be as simple or effective as I originally imagined and I began to feel as though I hadn’t put enough time into the idea and any security it had previously given me immediately vanished. As soon as I left the German consulate, that one year deadline started haunting me. I couldn’t think about anything else. My stomach fell through the floor and worry weighed heavy on my heart. I couldn’t put words to it at the time, but with the patience and encouragement of my incredible girlfriend, I came to understand that I was terribly afraid: I was certain that I would be cast out of Germany after my year of au pairing unless I created a plan for the following year before I left South Africa. The immense success of a guaranteed year in Germany turned into the condemnation of only one year.

I’m a harsh critic, especially of myself. I’m a cheesecake snob, but I am the most critical of my cheesecake, if it is ever so slightly grainy or over baked, it isn’t good enough. Whether I paint or draw or write or bake or set the table, I set very high standards for myself, and anything less than excellence is failure. This week’s journal, for instance, feels partially like a failure. I’ve written better pieces, why can’t I perform to my full potential every time I write something? When I set out to achieve something, I don’t really allow for much leeway. Either I succeed, or I fail, and my definition of success is usually quite narrow. With my fight, and it is a fight, to be in Germany, one year isn’t success. It didn’t feel like success when I walked out of the visa office. A year will fly by and before I know it I’ll be forced to leave my beloved and fly back to South Africa. My expectation was to make a plan for the following year as well, and failing to do so means failing the task as a whole. That’s what my hyper critical mind tells me. I am aware that if I treated the people I love with this same intensity it would be cruel. Somehow I can see the unreasonable, perhaps ludicrous expectation when I imagine expecting this of someone else. But I am not someone else. Perhaps you face a similar difficulty, maybe being kind to yourself feels like giving up, too. Somehow I’ve told myself that being gentler or kinder is equitable to quitting. Which I also know to be untrue, but I struggle to convince the guilt to leave. I feel guilty that I couldn’t secure a second year in Germany, or rather, that I haven’t yet. I try to remind myself, as does my girlfriend, that I have more than enough time to figure something out for 2025. I feel like I’ve let my girlfriend down, that I’ve let myself down, that I’ve broken a promise somehow. I know that isn’t true, I know having a year together after a year of long distance is a huge relief, a privilege even, but it’s difficult to convince my heart of the truth.

My girlfriend was kind enough to listen to my numerous unorganised thoughts and help me sort through them to identify which were valid concerns to be addressed and which were anxious ramblings. I’ll let you imagine which category formed the majority. Once I had exhausted my words and thoroughly explored my emotions, she began to introduce her perspective. Had I left my employment or perhaps my visa until the last moment, there might be a legitimate cause for worry, but as things are, there is little to stress over. She suggested that I was allowing my anxieties to steal the precious few weeks I still have at home. She’s right of course, but shifting my emotional atmosphere takes a while. I have to forgive myself for letting myself down. For only getting one year. She highlighted the success that we’ve both been hoping for for so long: we will be living in the same city, just around the corner from each other. Again, she can see far more clearly than I. My emotions, or more likely my expectations, stirred bitter sadness into me.

You may notice I’ve been writing in past tense. Today, as I write this, I am no longer haunted by alleged failure to plan for 2025. I am guilt free. I will share with you something that I have often shared with my fabulous girlfriend and that she has since reminded me of. I believe that I have a choice, I can decide to succumb to the overwhelming grief and guilt that my emotions convince me is reasonable, or I can decide not to give fear the mic. I am, believe it or not, not as the disposal of my feelings, they are at mine. They often try to convince me that they are in control, but I assure you that this is false. I needed my girlfriend to remind me that hope was an option in addition to the fear and shame I felt, and I could decide which to agree with. It’s hard. And uncomfortable. And real and achievable. Yes, for two days this week I allowed fear to rule me, and then I threw it off the balcony. The hope my girlfriend chose to side with is just as real as the guilt I felt, perhaps more so. I find that my fear almost always tells me lies, and lies are simply unacceptable in my house.

This is me, smiling in Germany, where I will be for the next year, and the one after that. And the one after that.

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Far easier said than done. And well worth the effort, believe me. If this journal resonates with you, please send it to someone you love.