Stronger Than I Think.
Everyone promised the baby blues, then the emigration slump. Neither came – and she starts to suspect her own strength was real.
She prepared for the postpartum depression the way you prepare for a scheduled delivery – therapist briefed, everyone had it, any day now. It didn't come. Then the emigration slump that every checklist promises – it hasn't come either. At some point the question turns around: what if the strength was real and the forecast was borrowed?
Maybe I'm much stronger than I think – that sentence is the post. Not a boast; a correction of an old habit: being raised to scan for the negative that doesn't always arrive. Amor Fati works the same turn from the philosophical side: to stop bracing against life and start receiving it – with interest, with curiosity, enjoying what is actually here.
The waiting for the catch is inherited, she says. The curiosity is chosen.
How much do we underestimate ourselves?
I've been thinking about how little I trust my own strength. When I was pregnant, everyone talked about the baby blues / postpartum depression. I waited for it so hard – any moment now – discussed it with my psychologist, prepared. And it didn't come. My wonderful therapist Maria kept asking me why I was waiting for it like that 😂 Well, how could I not – everyone had it.
Then came the move to Switzerland, and again I keep waiting for the moment when you start to miss things – the Russian language, friends, family – and the slump after the euphoria sets in. But that hasn't come either, so far. Maybe I just haven't been here long enough – or maybe that moment will never come?
Maybe I'm much stronger than I think. Being alone with my daughter 24/7 isn't hard for me; in the evenings and on weekends my husband helps. We manage well without nannies and grandmothers. And maybe it doesn't matter where I'm from – what matters is that my family is with me? My husband and my daughter 🥰 And friends are always my friends, even at a distance. And I can always see my mum and my sister – the world isn't closed just yet 🤭
Maybe we were raised that way – by relatives, by the country, by the world of those times – so that we're always waiting for some negativity that doesn't always arrive.
So now I'm learning not to expect a catch around every corner, but to look toward the future with interest and curiosity – and to enjoy the present.
Thank you for reading.
If her words reached somewhere mine don't – good. That's what this blog is for. Take what fits and leave the rest.
– Jan