I’ve been meaning to write a Part 2 to my language post, but our final weeks in Basel crept up on me and now I find myself in our nearly bare apartment, perched on a night stand while the cat occupies our only remaining chair. We’ve had 3 potential tenants come through today, taking me right back to 2 years ago, when I saw this place with fresh eyes. I can’t help but feel reflective.
When Denis and I finalized the decision to move to Switzerland, we had this goal of “becoming better people in Europe.” We felt frustrated by the patterns we had fallen into in San Francisco and hoped the move to a new country would be an opportunity to transform ourselves. Specifically, we wanted to spend less money on consumption (food, clothes, gadgets, things), expand our worldview (especially true for me, the American-centric American), embrace discomfort, and improve our physical health. Fundamentally, wanted to be less passive in our lives.
How this played out in our imagination was less about Swiss integration classes and government press conferences, and more about tasting our way through the Loire valley and hosting friends in the Alps, impressing them with our newly acquired linguistic and cultural skills. We saw personal reinvention as a choice—a luxury even—certainly not a necessity brought on by a global pandemic. How could we have known?
I deplore when people talk about the “silver linings” of COVID. For me, it’s offensive to attribute any upside to a crisis that has so far killed nearly 6 million people (on a reported basis) worldwide. That said, it is absolutely important for me to acknowledge that Denis and I have been incredibly privileged to live in comfort, safety, and good health both before and during the pandemic. We have so much to be thankful for.
Looking back on our 2 years in Basel, it’s difficult to isolate any one factor on our experience; i.e., COVID-Times and Our Swiss Era will be forever intertwined in my memory. Denis and I didn’t end up traveling all over Europe. We spent more time together in our apartment or separated across countries than we ever have in our nearly 13-year relationship. We did end up saving money because there was nowhere to go. I shed a lot of tears: at home, at work, in public. I was terribly home-sick in some moments, and head-over-heels in love with Europe in others. And I was SO HARD on myself. I felt so much pressure to make the move “worthwhile,” to succeed in my challenging job, and to not feel like Denis or our families would resent us for moving at this horrible time in everyone’s lives.
From my vantage point today, it’s easy to see how I eventually ended up walking into the University of Basel psychiatric emergency room (it’s a lovely, supportive, helpful place!), gripped by depression and anxiety. But I don’t know if it all could have gone another way. I’m in a really good place now, and maybe this had to happen for me to come out the other side. The experience led me to quit drinking alcohol for good, to prioritize my mental health, to let go of parts of my identity that were no longer serving me, and to hold tightly to the people who love and support me.
So did I succeed in “becoming a better person in Europe?” I realize now that I had the wrong goal in mind. I’m not “better” than I was before because I was always doing my best with what I had, as we all are. But I do feel different. I am learning to love all the parts of me, including the dark, empty parts as well as the gleefully childish parts. I am learning to be more present and still, and to make choices that move me in the direction I want to go.
As we say goodbye to our last days in Basel, and prepare for our first in Québec, I’m not setting goals. Rather, I’m committing to staying open to the experience and taking it one day at a time.