30 Days of Truth: Day 3

There isn’t any one thing that I can pinpoint that I need to forgive myself for, rather… a period of time.

After moving to the Netherlands, I was so incredibly miserable. I was 23 years old and ‘fresh off the farm’ so to speak.  I’d moved around a bit in Canada but that was all more of the same, moving to the Netherlands was a shock to my system in a way that I never could have expected.

I moved here thinking it was going to be easy.  I was going to be with the man I loved, anything beyond that was just minor details.  I was under the impression that if I moved here and didn’t like it that we would both pack up and move back to Canada, but once I was here I learned that it wasn’t as easy as it sounds.

My husband was young then too and wasn’t expecting things to turn out the way they did.  He had underestimated the amount of culture shock and homesickness that was waiting for me here too.  Having spent a large part of his childhood in Ireland, he didn’t have those life long friendship connections for me to attach myself to, and all the friends he did have were back where he went to university on the other side of the country.  Most of his family lived outside the country, so for the most part it was just me and him.  A huge change for me and a lot of pressure for him.

I became incredibly depressed and frustrated.  I resented him because there were promises made when I moved here that weren’t kept.  Looking back I can understand that nothing was as easy as either of us thought it would be but I wasn’t thinking clearly then.  I had given up everything to be with him and I hated it here.

I didn’t hate him though, which is what kept making me stay. In spite of how unhappy I was I refused to give up and move home… what I did do wasn’t a lot better though.

I allowed my unhappiness consume me.  The culture shock ruled my life and before I knew it I’d gone from someone who was outgoing and social, to someone who hated to ever leave the house.  I hated the Netherlands and wanted to go back to Canada and that is all I could think about.  It dominated my every thought and my behavior reflected that.

I acted out in ways that I’m truly ashamed of.  I could never see the good in anything here because in my mind it was never going to measure up to what I had back home.  This caused a lot of friction between myself and my husband, it created rifts within his family, causing relationships that were already under strain to break, and it just made me a terrible person to be around.

I spent the better part of 3-4 years with my heels dug in and my head buried in the sand.  I refused to learn the language at all because I feared it would appear like I was settling here and I’d never get my husband to leave.  I couldn’t maintain friendships because it required me to get out there and integrate myself, finding my own way and making a life here.  My friendships also didn’t last, I suspect, because people just couldn’t stand my misery.  Other than a few who were miserable themselves, and even then all that existed in our friendship was shared negativity which did neither of us any good.

I wasted a lot of time, I let my own unhappiness spread and affect those around me, and worst of all… I let myself get to such an extreme low mentally and physically that even now, after over 10 years, I am still trying to fix it.

I carry so much regret around with me.  I regret the way I let my anger, confusion and sadness rule my life.  I regret how it all affected my husband.  I regret that my behavior caused problems within his family.  I regret that I didn’t tackle the language right away and force myself to integrate.

I know I need to forgive myself, because other than making the effort to be the best wife I can possibly be to my husband now, trying to get over my fear of speaking Dutch, doing everything I can to help mend relationships that were lost and generally trying to be a better person… what can I do?

I can’t change the past, it happened and it will always be a part of my life.  All I can do is learn from it and try to do better, and maybe talk about it and hope there is someone out there somewhere who is feeling the way I did, and hope that they can learn from my mistakes too.

I wish I could say I forgive myself for all the events over those years, but I think that’s a long way away, maybe I never will.  I’m just like that, I’m a dweller.  I dwell….

Maybe one day.  I’ll keep trying.