Mornings, Falling into Housewifery and Flashbacks

"Today is the first day of the rest of your life..."

Yeah, fine.  I work very hard on reminding myself of this as I look forward to yet another week of trying to force through job prospects that may or may not work out.  Much of my experience, so far, being the latter.

But, I will save the rant about the job search for another time.  It's Saturday. I'm in a good mood.  

My Saturday mornings these days consist of getting up before my husband does.  Today, I strummed my guitar for a bit, went and perused my fave social sites for a bit, watched the fog seep slowly over the farm that comprises the back yard of our apartment complex.  I made coffee for myself and Earl Grey for my husband.  I then set him up with breakfast: Two wieners, some grapes and tomatoes.  On a paper plate.  Because that's what he likes.

I didn't used to do this.  But yet, here I am.  I clean house and serve everyone. I've become a housewife. I'm in a small, Bavarian town. I don't know the language.  I can't get a job in the large nearby city that purportedly has the best job market in Europe, at least not easily. So, I'm at home, whiling away my days sending out resumes, cleaning up the place, going for bike rides, and, frankly, until I got some ideas about how to fix this, cried about my current lot in life on one of my social networks.

I didn't see myself doing this at age 46.  Of course, I didn't see myself heading a huge corporation either, but I had different plans for my life. I wanted to be an independent, working woman, successful at doing wonderful creative things with others.  Writing. Acting.  Singing.  

And then I got married.  16.5 years ago.  Then my husband wanted to leave San Francisco and live in an RV.  I dropped everything and went along.  At the time, I was able to find work easily (temporary work, but work nonetheless), and eventually, at one of our locations, we ended up buying a house and I was able to switch careers and get into something that I really enjoyed doing: technical support and training.

Three years later, trough a whole set of circumstances that I won't get into here, we ended up in Sacramento, where, after about 7 months of trying, I ended up with a job at a large electronics firm doing customer service.  It was a contract position, and did not pay well, but with the economy being what it is, and the fact that it was literally handed to me, I took it and hoped against hope it would turn into something resembling a career for me. 

Earlier this year, my husband wanted to move to Germany. He went first. Eventually, as I've done many times before, I dropped everything, and went along.

I'm currently arguing with myself as to whether I was saved or damned at that last instance. Right now, I live in a nice apartment. In a small Bavarian town. With no job. Where I appear to be  the only American that shops at the local stores. Where communication with the locals is as easy as the proverbial camel through the eye of a needle.

But everyone smiles and says "Gross Gott". Even the children. That's nice.

With all this unexpected free time, I can look back and reflect at all these decisions that I either made, or that I allowed to have been made for me, over the last several months, and even over the last few years. At this point, I'm now finding that this blog was started to see if I can finally find something that can be done for me in terms of further adaptability, .  Catharsis, if you will.

Oh, sure, I've blogged many times before.  It just feels different, this time.  But then again, it always feels different with each new blog setup. Here's looking toward new things.

Another thing I will be doing is providing "flashbacks".  These will be posts of things that happened in the past year that have led to my current situation.  Should make you laugh.  Hopefully not cry.

Onward and upward...