Milena Moser about change and new beginnings: Adventures await

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My friend throws her backpack so hard on a chair that it falls over. We meet in a cafe at the main station, I have just returned to Zurich, she is leaving the city where she has lived all her life. I straighten my chair again and refrain from asking if she bought a heavy backpack for country life. She already has to put up with enough stupid comments.

Moving is stressful even under the best of circumstances. If people around you frown disapprovingly all the time, it becomes unbearable. I offer a double espresso to fortify her, and she selects the wine list.

“Just don’t say anything now,” she warns me. I don’t say anything. After a while, she takes out her mobile phone and shows me photos of her future home. It is located in the attic of an old farmhouse, somewhere on the edge of the forest, far from the nearest village. It seems nondescript, old-fashioned, a little dusty, but charming. And this cannot be compared at all with the modern city apartment with terraces, which she had to give up after the divorce. This seems to bother her loved ones. This is a radical change. Oh, and the fact that she signed the lease without even looking at the apartment…

“But what if you don’t like it? You are a city person! Do you know French at all? Actually, the new apartment is located not only in the countryside, but also in Wales.

Objectively speaking, there are many reasonable reasons against this step. And one that is hard to describe: ever since she saw these photos, she feels alive again. For the first time in a long time, she feels anxiously awaiting the next day. This is the desire for life.

A younger friend is leaving for two years abroad in the Far North for professional reasons. With the whole family, husband, three children and dog. Children will have to learn a new language and find their way in a new school system. Her husband, a freelance musician, will no longer tour. For her, the objections sound a little different: “Well, because of my career, the whole family… but no, I could never do that!”

She says: “If my husband had wanted to move, no one would have batted an eyelid.” That sounds less angry than I think would be appropriate, but she’s tired too.

“Ugh, I would never do that!” – I often hear this phrase. And will never be able to classify it. “Not necessarily,” I want to answer. “This is my life, not yours.” But we tend to compare ourselves with others. We compare other people’s decisions with ourselves: should I, should I, can I do this too? It can be quite interesting to ask yourself these questions. Instead, we often perceive these environmental changes as criticism. It was as if they were questioning our own life plans. And therefore, the initially unbiased, honest statement “I couldn’t do it” takes on a reproachful connotation. Such comments stifle many adventures. They probably also make it difficult for some people to follow the butterflies in their stomach. But not my friend, who finishes her glass, shoulders her backpack and walks off into the sunset, or at least towards platform 18.

Source: Blick