Deep Breathing Required

(Thought I published this on Friday. Oh well…here you go. I’ll have another one up today.)

I have been trying to start this post every day for a week. I’ve been waiting for things to become less depressive before exposing my life again to friends and family, but that might be a bit of a wait.

This last couple of weeks have been hell…HELL. Rebecca was sick…like cleaning puke up off the floor sick. Day 15 of waking up between 4:30 and 5:00 with Annie. (I read a funny post on Dooce where she was talking about her mean, mean baby who cried all the time. I’m starting to relate and think Annie is just starting to expressing some inherent cruel nature where she will torture her mother until death.) The neo-Nazi daycare (perhaps I shouldn’t joke about that in Austria) wouldn’t let Annie spend the afternoon, even when Annie fell asleep in childcare-provider Gabby’s arms. So Annie had a 10 minute nap that day and was just a treat for the rest of the afternoon. (It has only been 3 days that I have been allowed to keep Annie in daycare full time.) And yesterday I came down with the family cold (Markus has been tasked with smuggling great quantities of ColdFx into Austria.)

I finally realized how much I’ve taken my friends for granted, since I always have had so many everywhere I have lived (no more…you are all getting Christmas cards this year for sure.) I am quite lonely. And Markus has changed his return date from the 11th to the 13th, and also may be returning to Canada mid-November; I have suggested he pull an AbeBooks Christmas party special and only stay 3 days plus travel. We’ll see.

But I guess that there are going to be rough times in life with such a big change…some crap about appreciating the great moments or something.

The last couple of days Markus’ sister has tried to rescue me by inviting us over to her place, which has certainly helped. To prove to myself that there still is good in the world, I took this sweet picture of the cousins.

So what is good? German classes are very interesting, although it will be many months before I am able to express more complicated sentiments than your average toddler. (I was talking to our friend, Beth, whose daughter Haley has been in Eastern Europe for several months. Haley hit the nail on the head when she proclaimed she felt like a genius after returning to Canada, since she could actually formulate complicated, coherent and grammatically correct sentences.)

I continue to be in awe of the natural beauty in Innsbruck. The leaves have started turning on the mountainside and Rebecca called me to the window about a week ago to see one of the most brilliant deep red sunsets ever.

And on the cute daughter front, Annie can now have real (albeit short) conversations with people over the phone, which is so sweet to listen to. Especially the multiple goodbyes: Tshüs, Chow, Bis später, Bye! A little Sound of Music re-enactment.

And I am going to try to go away next weekend for some recovery. Salzburg is about a 2-hour train ride away and is on my list of places to see, so that is a likely destination. And visiting high school friend, Maria, in Antwerp is definitely on the horizon so I can see a friendly face. (Although I shouldn’t put it that way; Austrians are incredibly friendly and kind…I just don’t know what they are saying.)

Next time…more pictures, less complaining.