I had envisioned spending January posting wistful entries about the Cotswolds before my attention turns to Berlin on these pages, but I haven’t posted anything in over a month. This is partly because it doesn’t really feel like we are leaving and so I am not in the frame of mind to wax lyrical. We are, after all, moving into a furnished apartment in Berlin, and our cottage will remain largely intact except for our clothes.
The main reason for my lapse is that it has been an unpleasant few weeks. Not that I haven’t written about unpleasant things before — sickness, death, and fighting come to mind — but until now there hasn’t been enough distance from the drama for me to construct anything palatable enough for publishing. Husband is not happy about moving to Berlin, no matter how much contextualizing and box ticking and meeting of assorted terms and conditions is done. And a lot of box ticking has been done: beautiful flat, beautiful car, walking distance commute, and at least monthly return visits to the Cotswolds to name a few. He wants to want to go; the problem is he doesn’t want to go.
What he really wants is what isn’t on offer right now: to move back to Los Angeles. We are, in fact, in agreement on the merits of Los Angeles, which boil down to sun, the Pacific, Mexican food and Peet’s coffee. But I have now made enough moves initiated either entirely or partially in search of greener grass for husband — including London and the Cotswolds — to know there is limited mileage in relocation as an elixir for happiness. As husband himself has been known to say, wherever you go, there you are.
But the truth is as much as husband doesn’t want to go, I do. And so tomorrow night we will go, as planned, to Berlin. Under the circumstances it won’t be easy, but then again, what is?
