Life is never boring with you!

I didn’t expect that our journey as a family would be this adventurous. In my recent blog post, I mentioned that we have moved from one place to another every two years. Now it seems like we need to move again!

To be honest, I haven’t explored Frankfurt am Main much. When we moved here I found out that I am pregnant and I felt so unwell all the time. I wanted to explore the city, made new friends, and maybe experience a bit of nightlife here.

Unfortunately, it was only wishful thinking! What happened is: that I get so tired all the time, the house needs to be maintained, work was crazy, and I needed to go from one doctor's appointment to another. In fact, I never visit so many doctors as much as I visit them here in Frankfurt!

Now my pregnancy is almost reaching full term. I need to concentrate on the baby and survive the first 3-6 months of her life. To be honest, I have no idea how the experience will be. Yes, I read some parenting books and watched some baby videos but can we really be good parents?

Another thing that gives me so many burdens is the hormone! There are days when I feel like I wasted so much time in my life. Yes, I am still healthy and am functioning normally… but the thought that I wasn’t productive: didn’t use my time wisely, or didn’t produce any extra income with my spare time made me feel horrible. My hustling soul keeps telling me I need to do something, anything.

Then I came to the realization that hormones and productivity are like a chicken and an egg. I need to shift my mind from thermodynamic law where output divided by input is what counts as productivity. I need to think more than being productive and enjoying things I like the most will give a positive effect on my hormones and thus a better quality of life. I learned that everything that brings me joy (either it is blogging or simply taking care of my plants) would give me much more satisfaction in life that working my ass off for 9 hours straight.

And since I am not working (in a sense of a corporate job), I am actually having the freedom to organize my focus and my time. Three weeks into maternity leave and I am building my self-discipline: I live for my family and myself and not for the job I have been molded into. It is the time to embrace the uncertainty of motherhood, parenthood, and the time to get to know myself better.

On the other hand, the world is currently in chaos. If you see the news lately, they are all talking about the war, the energy crises, inflation, or climate change. Being pregnant is already difficult and living in such circumstances is not easy! Sometimes I have a fear of recession and how can we raise our children when the future seems so bleak? But other times I feel like babies give more hope. Somehow, they are the prolongation of ourselves, and the reason we need to survive. I still don’t know what to do apart from taking care of the baby. But I believe I will adjust when the baby comes. I shouldn’t make too many plans; I just need to go with the flow.

On that side note, my husband has been offered a new job to solve the energy crisis in Germany. He is a chemical engineer and his field is currently in a lot of change – which is good for him! I can’t believe that despite the crisis, our household income keeps projecting upwards. Yes, I need to tighten the belt here and there… since my own income will be capped at 1800 Euro during the parental leave. But overall we have been blessed with so much and I simply can’t complain about the financial department.

A new job means also a new location. Although the job will be mostly remote, my husband needs to travel to Hamburg where the company builds the hydrogen plant. But I don’t fancy North Germany. It is windy and often so cold. So I really hope instead of moving to Hamburg, we can move back to Dusseldorf!

Dusseldorf is definitely my city. I work there and my friends are there. I know the city quite well and they have huge Asian communities: Japanese, Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, and Filipino. So it is very natural for me to long for a home where I can simply be myself.

Frankfurt is not bad and I feel like I need to give it a chance. In fact, we live in a very nice neighborhood at the moment. Everything is so modern and within 500 meters' reach. Let it be kindergarten, supermarket, school, and train station. But… I am missing my friends and the Asian shops. So, what can I say?

In short, life is definitely not boring! I didn’t realize that we took so much risk within the span of 5 years. Please note that I am one of the most risk-averse persons you will meet. I have several plans most of the time but not this time. This time I simply trust the universe: with my pregnancy, with my career, with my relationship. I do my best though… I call my parents often, I text my friends and say hi, and I always drop the love on social media. I cook more, I clean more, and most importantly I write more.

In fact, I want to be more useful to other people and sharing is caring. However, there is a thin line between genuine care and being a smarty-pants. I definitely do not want to be the latter. So I am still figuring out my calling.

What I can assure you is that it takes a lot of courage for change and if you see an opportunity to do that. Just do that! We often regret the things we didn’t do rather than the things we did. So, did we regret moving to Frankfurt? Hell no.

Did we regret taking this risk? Also not! At the end of the day, the adventure makes our lives worth living.