Until I find a better home for this writing, it only feels natural to keep it here. But don’t forget to subscribe to my new newsletter via my new website, http://www.racheltavel.com (just scroll to the bottom to subscribe!).
Also, before you keep reading, I want to let you know that my writing here is stream-of-consciousness. I don’t edit it, and I honestly don’t even proofread it to keep it as authentic as possible. I write, then post. It’s fueled by coffee and a quiet moment in my day — just like my original TwT writing days. And I’m hoping to keep it as raw, unfiltered and authentic as I can for your enjoyment, and mine.
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It’s a Friday morning in Berlin, and it’s been almost one-year since I moved to Germany. I don’t know if the year has gone quickly or slowly but it’s not an exaggeration to say that this move has been truly life changing.
When I became a mom during the pandemic, I began to feel stress in a way and on a level I never experienced before. I was pregnant, which made me feel vulnerable on its own, but combine that with the constant threat of an unknown deadly virus and living in one of its epicenters of contagion (NYC), it’s no wonder life as I knew it didn’t quite feel the same.
Medical bills, childcare costs, and — eventually — our landlords deciding to sell our precious home on the most beautiful street in Brooklyn were the tipping points. When, as a new mom, everything in my soul told me to stay still and nest, another part of my brain was constantly seeking safety and security — both of which I kept finding out no longer existed in the wonderful life I thought I had created for myself.
The pandemic really did change everything.
Or was it motherhood?
I found out I was pregnant the first week of March 2020, and the world shut down the second week of March 2020. So, for me, the two experiences are forever intertwined. I will never be able to separate one from the other, or compartmentalize which feelings were associated with which event.
But I do know this: the combination was lethal to the life I knew before March 2020.
When I married a German, I knew moving was always a possibility, but it was one I resisted for years. Until we had a kid. In NYC. And, as you can see, the rest is history.
So what was I hoping to get out of moving to Germany? What is it that I didn’t have in New York that would compel me to make such a drastic life decision to leave my beloved hometown and family and friends (and language) to live abroad in a city I had only spent a total of 10 days in?
And more importantly, did I find what I was looking for?
I spent so many months soul-searching before this move. What was it that felt so wrong about life at the time? Why did everything that once fit suddenly feel too tight, like my pre-baby clothes?
We were stretched so thin, masked and isolated. We were in crazy expensive city that I love so much, but unable to enjoy most of it. We — a physical therapist and writer married to a teacher — were making enough to live a nice life until we had a child. When the cost of childcare (almost $3,000/month) was added to our monthly bills, our lifestyle suddenly changed.
I felt suffocated by life. There was never enough time, sleep, or money to relax. The virus spiked and spiked again, two unexpected surgeries in one year led to extreme medical bills, and a move 45-minutes away, plus a new daycare 30 minutes in the opposite direction from my office, added a long daily commute that I never wanted.
My son, who I adore, went to bed later than most kids, which left me with about 30 minutes a day of “me” time. I was so completely burnt out that, even though I was making the most money I had ever made, I felt like I had the least to go around.
Something was clearly broken. And I, for the first time, was feeling like I was starting to break, too.
I’ve done a lot. I’ve taken on a ton of challenges (as many of you know!). I’ve traveled alone in Mexico. I’ve moved on a one-way ticket to Ecuador knowing nobody in the entire country. I’ve traveled to Japan and Turkey and Costa Rica on my own… Gone to grad school in my 30s. Taken pre-med accelerated physics courses at Harvard (Extension School).
I know the pain of a challenge! I know grit. I know how to feel uncomfortable. But this time, it was different. The balance of life was so off that I knew I needed a change. A big one this time.
I made lists. I remember when I was 21 and working at Travel + Leisure and Food & Wine magazines, I felt so awkward pretending that that was the life I wanted. The office was in Times Square, and every lunch hour I’d leave the building zipping from one midtown lunch spot to another just to try and find a place with a short line where I could get some food quickly. Everything just felt so chaotic and fake. I wore business casual clothes — blouses, kitten heels, pencil skirts. It was hard to move around, and I knew something about working a 9-5 in the magazine industry just didn’t fit the way I thought it would.
It would have been so much easier if it worked for me, but every cell in my body was just screaming NO. THIS IS NOT IT.
During those lunch hours I would keep a list. What little or big things in my day made me happy, and what little or big things felt “bad” or just didn’t feel right?
Happy: reading the travel and sports sections of the New York Times every morning, sunshine on my skin, my coworkers, being told I did a great job whenever I proofread or wrote the boss’ emails.
Bad: dressing up for work, spending all day at a desk, answering phones (man, I hated answering the damn office phones!), pretending I was anything but myself.
That list became longer and longer, and soon it became clear to me that when I left that corporate office job in NYC, I would never ever go back to one.
I wrote that list when I was 21, and it’s amazing how true to me the list still is. I’ve moved so many times (seven times in the first seven years after graduating, to be exact) that I lost the physical copy, but I have it imprinted in my mind, and even managed to stay true to it with this move.
As pressure from motherhood and the post-pandemic world began to build, I began a new list. This one was just a pros and cons list: New York vs Germany. And, unlike my original list written on a pad of paper with a blue pen, this one was saved as a Google Doc in my Google Drive. I added to it, examined it, and meditated on it for years…
Here’s a sampling:
New York Pros: being near family (the glaring #1, always), career opportunities, potential to make a lot of money and be super successful, English, friends, the safety of feeling close to home, less risky
New York Cons: cost of living, noise, chaos, unpredictability or living situation and medical costs, need for huge financial cushion, cost of childcare, hustle culture, competitiveness for everything, intensity is too high, complete lack of work-life balance, constant need to make more money and work more to have a good life, not enough family time
Germany Pros: better work-life balance, more time for family, lower cost of living, lower cost of healthcare and childcare (echem, free!), Auggie gets to learn German, dual citizenship in the EU (just in case), easier/safer/more secure to try freelancing, it’s freakin’ EUROPE!
Germany Cons: I don’t speak German (yet), far from mom (insert broken heart emoji) and family, potentially very isolating experience, homesickness, fewer career opportunities after I’ve worked so fucking hard to get here, lower salary, less independence (need my husband to help — not easy for a very independent lady), huge stresses and emotions associated with big international move
So what tipped the scale? What became so clear that I could no longer deny it?
One word: FREEDOM.
In New York City, I began to feel trapped. Money money money. That’s what life was all about. Make more, earn more, have more, then breathe. My salary may have gone up. My opportunities may have gone up (actually, they certainly were). But my wellbeing was going down.
I thought long and hard about what are some of the most important values in my life, and the word freedom kept coming up. Freedom to live. Freedom to go to restaurants if and when I wanted. Freedom to spend time with family. Freedom to travel. Freedom to work the way I wanted to work. Freedom to be the me I always wanted to be… or really more like the inevitability of being the me I couldn’t pretend NOT to be. As inconvenient as I am!
The writer. The traveler. The adventurer who values freedom over money (but also needs both to achieve it all). The ambitious constantly excited about life seeker who doesn’t want to be contained in someone else’s box of expectations. The homebody who also needs excitement and to feel constant stimulation from the world. Movement, travel, and small pleasures inspire me. I can work hard and fast, so office jobs never suited me.
I can get done in 4 hrs what someone does in an 8 hr day, so it tortured me to have to sit there anyway, even when the work was done. Or just get more work to fill the time. That life didn’t make sense to me. I wanted out of it.
I can say now, almost one year after this move, that balance has been restored. Nothing and nowhere is perfect, but my ability to sit here right now and write like I haven’t done in MONTHS is evidence of this.
Balance — time to to think, to be creative, to be inspired, and to write. This is a return to me. This is the space I have been seeking. Space to breathe, to get clarity, to dream again.
So have I found that here in Berlin? Yes. Yes, I have. But I didn’t get here without a fight.
As I return to my roots as Travels with Tavel, I am so looking forward to telling you more about this new life as Rachel in Berlin.
It feels so good to just write for pleasure again. Thank you for sticking with me.
Travels with Tavel 