The child I will never have

Before I became a mom, it was always clear to me that I was either going to have two or more kids, or none at all. It didn’t even cross my mind to have an only child. Before having kids it was clear to both me and my partner that we wanted to have kids, but we never discussed the number. “We will see” we said, but I was sure that it was going to be at least two.

And then we became parents, and it hit us like a tidal wave. The whole giving birth process was a traumatic experience for me and the years after were so very intense, that it took us a long time until we had a moment of tranquility and pause in order to talk again about things with my partner. But in the middle of the storm, with sleepless nights and a feeling of solitude being a mother, discussions between my partner and me became quite often. But yet, I knew I wanted to have more children, I knew I wanted to give my child that sibling. You see, my siblings have always been a very important part in my life, and my sister has been the person I can talk to about anything. I did not want my child to miss that, I did not want to deprive my child of that wonderful experience. If I could give him a sibling, why would I choose not to? And then one day my partner said “I do not want to have any more children”. And it again hit me like a bomb. I could not believe he meant it for real. I knew I could not force him if he did not want to, but inside I felt anger towards him, like wanting to say “why did you not tell me from the start you only wanted one child, maybe I would not have agreed to even have any kids at all”. I know this might sound selfish. I know nobody knows until you experience parenthood. But to accept that my son was going to be an only child, it just broke my heart. To accept that I was never going to be pregnant again, to give birth again, that I was never going to have another baby again…you see, despite all the trauma and intense years of parenthood, I started to miss those days when our son was so little, when I could carry him in my carrier, nurse him until he fell asleep, rock him, and I truly loved being pregnant. I did not have time to really savor that experience, I did not know it was going to be the last one. And so my mourning began, but I did not feel I was entitled to mourn, after all, I already had a child, so what was I complaining about? “Be thankful for what you already have” I heard some say when I wanted to talk about it or “you can’t have all in life, can you”. So I decided not to talk about it with anyone anymore. Maybe because of fear of sounding selfish or ungrateful, after all, they were right, I already have a healthy child, is he not enough? He is, and yet, I am sorry I have this longing inside me to become a mother again. And I feel guilty about it.  I feel sad when I see him playing alone, while other kids are playing with their siblings. And it’s hard to admit but I also feel jealous when I hear other women are pregnant again, it is like..why can they and why can´t I? Of course I feel happy for them but it also reminds me they have something I want so much and I just can’t have. And I suffer in silence. It is there with me, every day, it is there when I am with my child, it is there when I see other kids, it is there when I see other families. And it is there when I am with my partner, who is the one "depriving" me from that. I gave up asking for it as I do not want to feel sort of like a dog begging for food..I wonder if it will ever affect me in a long term, will I ever be able to feel happy at all? Will I finally heal and feel ok with the fact of only having one child, or will I mourn forever that child that could never be? I do not know yet. There are days where I barely think about it but some other days I just want to take all the baby clothes out I was saving for that sibling and burn them all down. I know it is a process and maybe I will need to ask for help. Don’t worry about me, I will be fine. I am strong and my mental health is important to me. If I can´t heal by myself, I will ask for help.

Meet The Parents

Hello there and happy new year...2011! Almost 3 years since my last post? Im surprised my blog still hasnt got any spiderwebs as background..in any case...I passed some nice christmas back home in Munich with Marcos and some snow the last day before our return (yes! he finally made the big effort to "suffer" during 5 days with my parents ;)) and the 25th we passed it with his family back in Madrid. Its funny because our relationship somehow reminds me of the film triology (until now triology) of "Meet The Parents"...my dad reminds me of Robert De Niro every time he tells Marcos to take care of me...and Meet The Parents 2 could be the way Im afraid could be when my family meets his family...2 different cultures and backgrounds, a hippie German-Bolivian family meets a conservative Madrileño family...what will come out? I am still wondering because both families never met until today. Will this year be the year where they finally meet? Will there also be "faux-pass" all the time? My dad talking about his favourite topic, politics, for example? Im thrilled...and I also wonder, how are we going to managein a long-term to bring together 2 different cultures? I mean, 2 really different cultures!
I was thinking about what people say about Germans (I am 50% German ;-)) in general they are cold, serious, organized, punctual blabla...and what do they say about Spaniards?...in any case, I need alot more patience here than in any other country Ive been, for example 3 things happened to me today which describe what I mean with this: I was queing in a coffee shop for a coffee and 1a: when I am about to pay suddenly a couple cut in line right in front of my face 1b: they dont care I protest I was first and 2: the woman on the til is more busy with her phonetalks than to cash and doesnt seem to be bothered about the queue 3: when I am trying to grab some sugar in the self-service counter there are around 5 ppl chatting and blocking the stand and do not bother about my "excuse me" to get some sugar. But like I said, happy new year 2011 ;)!

Saying goodbye to summer and preparing for a cold winter...

Its been a long time since my last post. I wanted to write before, but you know how it is, so this one is going to be a bit of a summary of the last months...
I survived a horrible summer in the city, in terms of temperatures. I knew Madrids summer was going to be hot, but this was just..an experience I will never forget (I wonder why there are no t-shirts around saying "I survived Madrid!"). But anyways, human being usually tend to quickly forget bad experiences, and now at the end of September it finally cooled down to comfy temperatures (I even use to wake up with a frozen nose which is a sign that winter is coming). Our new/old flat seems that it is not going to be the warmest and cosiest place to survive winter...the window is old and every night we hear 5 garbage trucks passing by just as if they were going to run us over in our bed (although we live in the 6th floor). You can imagine how it was in summer, when we had to keep our window open in order not to suffocate, forget about sleeping before 2 am..
I finally managed to infect Marcos a bit with my travel fever and we did quite a bit of travelling (for me too less and for him too much). Not that we went to exotic places but you have to start with something right? Actually, we went to the usual places (Almunecar, Munich, Venice..) but isnt home the best place to go on your holidays? I enjoyed being back in Munich and sleeping again in my tiny room at "mums hotel", playing with my cats, or just hanging around and watching tv...and mum converting every culinary longing in your head into reality. So that it was about my holidays, ok, no hitchhiking in australia or anything like dat (like some of u guys doing ;-)) but trust me, I will definitely not forget these holidays where I just so much appreciated being home. Apart of that, I am now ready for a big travel like for example...Japan (si Chuy! ;-)).
In terms of work, well...I dont want to say I feel that I baceame one of those human roboters which do the same every day...although I am afraid I did...I think I now could go all the way to my workplace, make photocopies, type in numbers, prepare invoices and go back home while being asleep. And the worst is that I realized that the only thing which keeps me going is (apart of the money of course :P).. commodity... Yesterday I was at the hairdersser, the one who attended me was a paraguyan girl or woman, around 30's...we started chatting and she told me she got 2 jobs here, one cleaning job in the morning, and the hairdresser one in the afternoon. She said every day she left home at 7am to take a train out to a place around an hour away from Madrid and clean apartments. Then she came back into the hairdresser shop until 9 pm. Every day. She also told me she had a small son, whom she hadnt seen for 5 years (she left him in care with her mother in Paraguay). I noticed her eyes started to whimper when she told me about it...I know this is one of a thousand immigrant stories in this city...alot of people just come to work here, save money and send it back home. They only come here for work, and in some way, I am a bit the same as they. Not that I want to compare myself with them, I know that their lifes are so much harder. But sometimes I feel Im also here just for work...in some way Im also an immigrant, with no family, and yes, a stranger...I could never feel here the same as I do at home. Even though I bought myself two cats, the same bed I have...I know I will never feel at home..

Job- and househunting in Madrid- not an easy thing at all

So here I'm back again; after one month of looking for a decent place to live, I was just too busy and stressed to post sthg new in my blog.
I was living 6 months in the office where I worked (I had a small room for free in the same flat) which was only good because I just had to open the door and I was at work (still I never managed to be there on time), and also, if i felt tired I could just go into my room and have a siesta. But the bad thing abt it was that after finishing work at 7pm, I could not say "Im going home", I said "well then, Im going into my room". And as my sister and her bf (my bosses) are workaholics, they used to say til later, so I was in my room hearing them typing and obvioulsy, could not disconnect from anything. Apart of that, the area was not very idillic - it was located in Las Tablas, as locals call it "satellite cities", or "sleeping cities" - ppl only go there to sleep. It is a new area in the north of the city, around 45 mins by metro from town centre. The building boom here is still alive, and every m2 is used to build new blocks, which all look the same and somehow, all have a "paddel" court and a common swimming pool (paddel is sthg similar to tennis but the court is smaller). But the flats here are new and more affordable than in town centre, and therefore, many middle-class ppl opt to live in a boring area but have a nice flat with a new kitchen (still I wonder why the hell there is not a single supermarket around, but pharmacies and banks in every corner).
So, I was quite desperate to move out from there and seriously starting to fall into depression. As with the trainee-money I was earning at my sis company I could never afford to live somewhere in town centre, the first thing I had to do was to look for a new decent-paid job, and then I could finally afford to live in a nice flat in the lively city. But being used to german salaries, 1000 euros brutto a month didnt sound much to me (and well, the fact that I fluently speak 4 languages was not a serious advantage neither, unless you wish to opt for a career as a telesales-person). Another thing was that I felt a bit disappointed as most of my interviewers did not even know what a BA was, and I had the feeling that all these 3 years of my expensive tourism studies in England were for nothing. So I gave up looking for a job in tourism (as well-paid trainee positions here are a scarce thing and all I got offered were waiter or if lucky, receptionist positions). I inserted my cv in the german industry chamber and finally got a call from a lawyers office, the lady told me they were looking for an administrative with english and german. I wasnt really keen on the offer, as somehow was till hoping to get sthg in my study area, and arrived late to the interview. I thought they would send me back home because of this but it was not the case. When we finally arrived to the last part of the interview, I wanted to kiss the interviewers feet when I heard the salary they offered. There was not much to think about, the job sounded good and I needed the money so I could finally live the life of a normal person again. So that is how I ended up in a lawyers office, and even though I do not think the job will ever get me to start studying law, I feel happy and grateful not having to bother about the money anymore.
So, finally a managed to get a decent job...but I did not know that looking for a decent place to live would give me such a headache.
I moved in to Marcos place for a month as it was much closer going to work from there as from Las Tablas. This was seriously the closest I ever got to feel how it must be to be married - very scary I must say. But the thing was, they were planning to sell the house, so that 1st of june was the date when we had to move out. As always, we left the househunting for the last. So on the 15th, we started to get nervous - hey, remember we gotta move out in 2 weeks, and unless we'd fancy living under a bridge, we should start looking for sthg. The difficult part of the thing was going to be to find something for both of us - we got the brilliant idea to rent out one room only and save some money instead of renting out two separate rooms (Marcos has his own room at his grandfathers place and I still keep my room in Las Tablas just in case we should get too much on each others nerves). And in almost every ad it said: "Sorry, no pets and no couples". So, what could we do?
The first thing we saw was a room which sounded good in the ad - big room with big bed in a nice flat - for "only" 500 euros a month - and couples accepted!! But when we went to see it, it was a tiny room with no window - 500 euros for the dream to live in Madrid trendy area in calle Fuencarral. The next things we were going to see were all had a catch in it. Too small, too old, too dark, too expensive, (most of them are too expensive, but you wont find anything good under 400 euros a month in town centre). I must say it was a small adventure too, as we got into all kind of houses and flats, with all kinds of different people living in there - posh people, gay people, lesbians, immigrants, students, workers...One place we saw was a tiny appartment with a Bolivian woman and her little daughter, she rented out a small room with a double bed for 450 euros - or a peruvian guy who rented out his room and said he was going to sleep in the living room - typical circumstances for latin american people living here. Another room we saw was also intersting - the flat was full of roses and pictures of audrey hepburn and marilyn monroe - the room all painted in pink that it almost hurt my eyes - and when the landlady got to know that Marcos and me were a couple, she kindly said "Oh well, you can come to visit her one or two days if you want - or even stay over in the room if you like - but of course, not for longer, you understand?" So we did and ran out of the place.
But the world is a small place, and we found an ad which sounded quite good and in a good area near Goya. It turned out that it was the same place where the girlfriend of a colleague of Marcos lived - so we went to see it, with not much energy left anymore and I was prepared for another disappointment. But see it there, the room was perfect - big, brightly and new - with an own sofa and a big bed. And the best, the landlord allowed us to share it the tow of us - paying a bit more than the normal price. We agreed and if everything goes as planned, I will finalyl have my own place on the 1st of June...

A jewish passover in Madrid (19 & 20 april 2008)

This weekend in Madrid was pretty interesting apart of the shit weather. On friday me and Marcos created a piece of art for our room by putting coloured sheets which we took from a Zara catalogue all together into a mosaique and glued them on the wall. I must say our room looks much nicer now (picture to follow soon), Marcos has some curious ideas from time to time!
Saturday we went to see Egypts Sunken Treasures of Franck Goddio (whoever is that guy), pretty interesting exhibition about undersea treasures, although a bit expensive (11 € per person, as always M. managed to convinced the lady at the cashier that we were students so we payed "only" 9 € ). I think this exhibition will be travelling around other cities, so everybody who is interested in this kind of things should go and see it!
Saturday evening our jewish flatmate Vivienne invited us and some other friends to celebrate the jewish passover
which commemorates the liberation of the Jewish slaves who were led out of Egypt by Moses. It was a pretty interesting experience for me, as I always wanted to participate in a jewish ceremony. Vivienn told us a bit about the history (and a funny way of looking at the 10 plagues), the passover meal, which contains lettuce, lamb bone, charoset, horseradish and beetroot paste, celery and roast egg (well Vivi did not have all the ingredients and neither a lamb bone, so she just drew some and put them on the plate). Each of this components had a symbol, I do not remember each of them, I just remember we ate parsley in salt water to some kind of remember the bitterness and suffering of the Jews during that time..I was pretty proud of the matzo bread which I contributed to do!
So, after a few glasses of red vine and passing on to a samba party and I managed to crawl to our room somehow, when I found everything (as always) on the bed: ipods, nintendo consoles, mobile phones etc...I dont remember anymore but the only thing I wanted was to sleep, so I took the blanket and shaked everything what was lying there. The next day I found a sad face desperately looking for his nintendo ds, and as we spent the whole afternoon searching for this little thing we came to the conclusion: somebody must have stolen it! New theories were made about who entered the room and took it, and even I became a suspect (which did not surprise me as somehow i that night I managed to put marcos mobile battery into a glass of vodka). But well, while Marcos went to interrogate poor Vivienne abt her friends, I noticed we forgot to check his pullover on the chair - and see there, it was inside his sleeves. So the world was fixed again and everybody was happy...!