Tag Archives: Personal

On My Mind

Feeling Like Myself

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I ran into a friend in town last weekend who asked what I thought was a very insightful question: Are you feeling like yourself?

I’m 25 weeks pregnant and my body is undergoing a series of rapid changes. I’ve become comfortable with the pace of change at this point, but the changes themselves are always very new, and each still takes some getting used to. That being said, I really don’t spend that much time in each individual body phase before another takes over. It’s a journey, as they say.

And it really is very beautiful. I have always loved seeing what the body is capable of, and I confess myself in awe of biology.

It’s obviously not just the body that changes during pregnancy, but also the mind. I’m not talking about “baby brain” here, but rather the way that I’ve come to see myself, which is why my friend’s question rang really loudly. The way I spend my time now is definitely different to how I spent time before: I cycle to and from school much more slowly; I am restricted to easy (and therefore boring) routes at the climbing hall, and being there is more for social reasons than training reasons; yoga has become about opening, stretching, and breathing, and no longer has anything to do with using the breath to go deeper and become stronger; I find myself very comfortable spending evenings quietly at home and have been doing a lot of crocheting. Of course, some of this could be related to the time of year. It’s cold, dark, and generally unpleasant outside, and I was more than happy, as always, to go for a long walk in the forest on a sunny day last weekend. But it all feels a little slower, a little more relaxed, a little more settled.

I’m still feeling like myself in the sense that I am at home in my body. I love what it looks like and feels like, I take a picture once a week, and I am utterly charmed by the movement of my growing baby. But where I’ve had to see myself differently is in the way that my body allows me to experience the world. I have had to modify much of what I love to do because that’s the right choice right now, and my body reminds me of that. Accepting where my body is today allows me to enjoy this stage of life, and that is good for the mind. Feeling good in the mind is what allows me to feel like myself, albeit a somewhat different version.

Different phases of life give us the opportunity to try on different selves and I’ve been letting myself listen to this current one. It turns out there a lot of peacefulness to be had there.

Weimar, Germany – November 2025
On My Mind

Expecting – Part I

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You were the size of a sesame seed when your papa and I first learned about you. We were in the Alps for some climbing and mountaineering, and all I could think about was you.

You were the size of a blueberry when we first saw your heart beating. And how fast! We were in awe.

You were the size of a strawberry when it was time for new bras. Finally, an easily managed symptom of my body shaping itself to house you.

You were the size of a fig when I saw your hands wave and feet kick. You turned around and around.

Your papa and I held hands in the waiting room when you were nearly the size of a lemon. Then, the doctor showed us your symmetrical brain, four-chambered heart, 10 fingers, 10 toes. Your feet crossed at the ankles and your hands covered your face. Through tears, we watched you move.

You were almost the size of an apple when it was time for maternity pants. I marvelled at my body’s ability to make space for you.

You were the size of a cucumber when my skin met skin in places that had never touched before. I grew out of my climbing harness and started wearing one designed for my changing body, announcing to everyone who didn’t already know that you were on the way.

When you were the size of a mango, your papa felt you move for the first time. We lay in the dark as I guided his hand, both of us basking in the astonishment of you.

Halfway through the journey of becoming, you were the size of a grapefruit. Your papa and I took some time away to be together, smiling all the while at you.

Madeira, Portugal – October 2025
Germany

Blink

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My grade seven students were surprised to find that class had already ended, shocked by the observation made earlier in the lesson that it had been a year and a half since they had completed the important exhibition that concludes grade five.

Time is funny like that.

I first moved overseas ten years ago.

My then-boyfriend and I got on a plane and slept better on the flight from Chicago to Hong Kong, the second leg of our journey, than we had in the nights leading up to our departure. We landed in Malaysia knowing nothing about what we were doing, I realized later, and it’s a good thing, too. Had we known how much we didn’t know, we never would have gone.

I’ve been much more prepared for subsequent moves and I can only shake my head at everything that went wrong that first time. Sometimes I ask myself why I hadn’t simply spent a little more time on the internet doing some pretty basic research, but then I remember that the world was a different place ten years ago. Information was not expected to be at our fingertips, so we didn’t spend much time looking. Unlike today, a world in which we are paralyzed by the amount of available information, I trusted what I was told and moved on.

Considering the ten years since getting on that plane, I cannot be more grateful for not knowing, for not having asked, for letting blissful ignorance guide me in the direction of what could logically be considered a stupid decision. Shortly before departure, I learned that my boss had quit, and found out upon arrival that ground had not been broken for the promised staff apartments and that the school itself was a hard-hat zone without consistent running water. Had I walked into those conditions today, I would have headed straight back to the airport.

But hindsight is twenty-twenty, and most of us who arrived were optimistic to a fault. It’s kind of a beautiful trait, actually, because it kept us going. We said “yes” again and again when everything around us was screaming “no”.

Optimism or utter foolishness, depending on how you look at what happened next.

In the end, my then-boyfriend and I moved (well-prepared!) to different countries, staying together for a year only to separate upon reuniting the next. Subsequently, I spent a few years deciding who I wanted to be now that I’d grown up. Armed with experience and facing a dearth of options, I took the only one there was: A small school had offered me a job, a small school in a small town that, according to my scouring of Google Maps, had a climbing hall. The news everywhere said that a pandemic was a bad time to find a new job, so the only logical answer was to take it.

In just over a month, I’ll take the German citizenship test for the chance that I’ll apply for citizenship here one day, a sure sign that I’ve decided to call this place home. For this, I can thank learning the language and falling in love with a local. We laugh when telling people about the dot on the map that brought us together, and remain in awe of the travel experiences that had us, for years, in the same corners of the world mere months apart.

I remain astonished at how small the world is, and I think I moved abroad to live that for myself. I signed and then broke a two-year contract, and then I blinked and ten years went by.