Saying "Weeks" at the One Month Mark
Just as a new parent counts the minutes, then hours, then days, then weeks of their new baby’s life, we have now lived here in Copenhagen for one month. I’ll likely still say “weeks” in my answer when asked how long ago it was that we moved here for bit more yet, because the word holds a fragility that I want to honor.
I’m often tempted to rush through the discomfort of this fragile stage. It’s a time of discovery! Of adventure! Exploring! I have wanted to present a stronger face, a resilient, capable, and brave face, not one that readily admits to feeling stuck, frustrated, fearful, and sometimes downright helpless. This time around, I am better able to see that being resilient, capable, and brave has almost everything to do with acknowledging feeling fearful, fragile, and scared, not pretending I don’t feel them. Our human hearts really cannot rush or ignore these harder realities of life without risking great harm to ourselves or others.
That bewildering sense of fragility, I’ve learned, lasts far longer than I like. Without comparing or invalidating others’ griefs — I hesitate to use the word “grief” casually or carelessly — I know that there is real grief involved in living as we do, with repeated moves, and relational and place changes. It has not gotten easier with repetition. Our children feel it intensely; indeed, it is accurate to say that they have suffered it, and I do too.
That oft-tossed platitude, “Hope you are settling in well!” is well meaning. Even we tour-callused old timers say it to each other in the small talk of life. But the dignifying, socially acceptable phraseological liturgies can also beguile us and others; they risk papering over realities that do need to be aired and acknowledged rather than politely managed, smoothed over, or functionally ignored. Offering that space with dignity and solidarity is something I’m learning to offer to others as I acknowledge that I need to do so for myself.
At a gathering recently with some other newcomers to the embassy community, I introduced myself to everyone there, including a younger mother who had young children in tow. She was the only one who had come with children, and having been there and done that myself in tours of yesteryear, I wanted to honor what she might be carrying, besides the sleeping baby in her arms. Our conversation opened with the usual formulaic - Where have you served? When did you get here? How long will you be here? She said they arrived in the spring, and I told her that we were about to cross the one-month mark. Then I asked her that horrific but still near-mandatory question: “How are you settling in? How are you finding it here?”
She answered quite authentically, admitted that they were doing ok, still figuring things out and starting to find places of belonging for their family. I was glad to hear it, and then deliberately stepped out of usual formulaic, without any expectation that she had to follow me there: “Hey, each person has their way of navigating these changes, but I want you to know that, at five months in to a new posting, I think you’re still in the slog phase. What makes it worse is that you think you should be over it by now, shouldn’t have that sense of bewilderment, but I’ve found that it often takes up to six months for the bewilderment to ease up a bit, and it takes almost a year before you feel even remotely ‘settled.’ You aren’t doing it wrong. It’s almost impossible to speed that up.”
Immediately her eyes filled with tears of recognition. “Thank you for saying that. That really helps.” Her tears didn’t drop; I wasn’t pumping her emotionally to fill some inner ache in me. I was just sharing what I have found to be true, and with her tears, she agreed. It helped me to say it out loud for myself too, because inasmuch as I have taken this path many times, it doesn’t feel any easier to run it again and still feel bewildered. I have to remind myself that I cannot speed up the processes of the human heart - mine or anyone else’s.
We all hold griefs, but our culture has few if any real liturgies or disciplines for how to hold them, and much less a sense of shared, sustained, patient practices for grief at all. We are prone to rushing or altogether ignoring the time, attention, and even physical energy that our hearts, minds, and bodies require to find our footing again in a new season.
New seasons are born with any kind of major change, and while ends always hold new beginnings, new beginnings also represent real endings. These invariably involve us in the labor of grief. Grief is not only not something to be ashamed of, or endured by studiously ignoring it, but acknowledged and patiently known, as awkward and hard as that might feel. It’s new terrain that necessitates taking baby steps. We are gentle with babies as they find their footing, and we have to practice being gentle with ourselves as we find ours. I’m practicing all of this in my baby stepping. It takes time to gain acquaintance with our griefs, and even to practice enjoying our joys that we discover along the way. The foot-finding isn’t linear, and it usually takes far longer than we’d like to acknowledge. (I’ll say more about this again soon, because I have learned a lot about this from wise friends.)