Stand up for Your Accomplishments!

January is THE month for new beginnings. After you look back on everything you have done the previous year, new horizons open up, you set new goals, and you are ready to make a fresh start!

Usually, a tool that helps this process a lot, is to learn (and I insist on that- it is a learned skill) to acknowledge your achievements. And when I say achievements, I don’t mean anything big – unless of course you have achieved something big!  I mean all the small, even tiny everyday things you have started, have learned, and have completed.

And usually we (especially expat women) forget all about it, never give credit to ourselves, because we feel these are usual, ordinary things, that every creature on planet earth has achieved!

Well, this year I decided to give my ordinary unmentioned accomplishments, a chance to be heard.

“I will write a list of all the things I have accomplished the previous year,” I said. For that reason, I took a 10 minute ride on my bike, to the forest close to my house. It was a cold sunny day; the air was fresh in the forest, the smell of the trees and of freshly cut wood was accompanying my senses. I sat on a bench facing the sun and I wrote:

I had a baby three years ago which is not a new achievement, but I need to start from here, not only because it’s the biggest thing that has ever happened to me, but also because with it a thousand smaller accomplishments have emerged.

I learned to do crafts with him. I am very bad at them!

I learned to play with cars, airplanes, helicopters, buses, and to produce different sounds for each one of them.

I learned how to BE an airplane.

I have learned to spend my day in playgrounds: mornings and evenings, with snow, rain or sun…and I have even learned to do it with pleasure!

I learned how to cook healthy food. Let me rephrase that. First, I learned how to cook…It took me almost a year to accept that cooking two meals every day, for a three member-family, is not as hard and as boring as it was in the beginning. The first month, I cut my finger and ended up at the clinic at 9:30 in the evening, where I had to convince the staff that I was not trying to kill myself. All I wanted to do was to squeeze a lemon with a sharp knife…My husband said I wanted to kill the housewife in me! He is a psychoanalyst, but this is another story. When cooking started to make some sense to me, and I started to actually find some joy in it, I decided to learn how to cook healthy food. Just very recently I got the feeling that I have achieved that.

I worked on my patience…

I learned to get by in simple everyday situations with my broken German. Actually, this is an everyday achievement, especially for someone like me, who spent the first year in Zurich dreading any kind of communication with people in German. This meant that I had to be either very hungry to enter a restaurant or very sick to go to the pharmacy…And I don’t want to mention the fact that I was entering a shop only if it was fully packed with people so nobody would bother to ask me if I needed any help…

I started baking bread. I made an amazing cinnamon bread, which kind of changed my life, and I got obsessed with its scent and taste, and butter-egg and milk mixture…

I learned to live with a man!  What did I just write? Well, expat families have this peculiarity. They depend so much on each other, and because of the lack of help from other family members that live abroad, don’t have the “luxury” to fight, and stay mad at each other for as long as they like…You need to reconnect as soon as possible because on the 15^th you have a dentist appointment and on the 18^th  he has a night out with his colleagues, or an evening lecture, or… You simply can’t afford being mad at each other, because no grandmother or even in- law, would pop up to help with your schedule if something goes wrong…

I learned to live with me…Big achievement: huge one actually! This includes not hating my “gray” zones, accepting my feminine side, and all the non-rational but also non- irrational things that go with it.

I read many books last year, and I did it with a system. I read on the tram, in playgrounds, during my son’s nap. I discovered new interests, and I borrowed books from the Zentralbibliothek, which was an interesting experience on its own. Going there, searching onlinefor the book (There is a big list of English books), then getting the book and spending some time reading it on one of the comfortable couches was great. (That I did when my son was in childcare). Sometimes I was so tired that I fell asleep with my head hidden under the book…it may sound embarrassing, but believe me it was such an indulging time…

I started to plant my own herbs. I bought seeds. And for the first time they survived! Well, not all of them, but some. I now have oregano, basil, mint, and parsley.

I started teaching a new private class in contemporary dance. Here the credit should be given to the person who wanted to start it. But, I am glad he likes it and wants to continue, and I’m excited with the prospect of forming a regular group.

I finally came to terms with the fact that my sleep will be interrupted for a minimum of another 10 years, and it will never get as good as it was, in the pre-baby phase … This is something I was avoiding accepting, saying to myself it is a phase, it will pass, etc.…After three years, I got the strength to acknowledge reality and say out loud, “I will not get a good night’s sleep anymore.”…

No, that’s not true. I didn’t come to terms with it, I never will. I hate the fact that on a Sunday morning I can’t get up anytime I want, and I will always hate it when on a Saturday evening I look at my watch at 11:30 p.m., and feel I need to get to bed, just because otherwise I won’t be able to make it the next day… I want my sleep back, and I will never put up with sleep deprivation whatsoever. But, maybe some of you have found a way to deal with it, and so the credit is all yours. I will always be the short –tempered, unpleasant kind of a person after a very bad night’s sleep.

Last, but not least, (I don’t like this expression- I will change it). Lastly, I want to stand up for another accomplishment, which has to do with this fresh start of sharing all of the above with you  and with the opening up to this new relationship that is about to start…

By Eleni Mylona
Eleni lives in Zurich with her husband and son. She is a performer and a movement teacher.