It's not what you think, I swear.
So, you want to know how my summer was?
The quick-fix answer is idyllic.
We were home, in Switzerland, away from the hot & steamy concrete jungle that Tokyo turns into each year about this time. All we had to do was get up, play tennis, walk in the mountains and then enjoy a BBQ.
But, that spontaneous question, that we all ask so casually, conjures up so much more than that for me.
So if you will humour me, I am going to take the long way around, back to my pre-stroke days, in a complicated way to answer a seemingly simple question.
I will be the first to admit that my life was a little bit more “spoiled expat wife” than sex, drugs & rock-n-roll. Hell, if I didn’t know myself, I would be jealous of me.
When we moved to Tokyo, Johan went to the office each day and left me to it. I kept myself busy with loads of stuff. My newly found freedom enabled me to go explore with my camera in tow, to write with abandon and to focus on my children in a new and deep way.
That was until 20 February. Then it all stopped.
Who could replace me to my children?
Who could pack their favourite snack when they had a tough day ahead of them? Who could snuggle up with them when they couldn’t sleep?
Who on earth?
Honestly, I could write a love letter to Johan, thanking him for all of the ways that he did just that.
Can you imagine the whirlwind that was his life?
In the blink of an eye, you have a seriously sick wife in a foreign country, three children who now look to you to explain and nothing can just make it stop?
I cannot imagine.
It left me in a state. I was, on one hand, motivated by his strength and capability to pull it off but, on the other hand, was at a loss of how I could ever recover quick enough to end the purgatory that he was in.
My hospital stay was a long six weeks for us all. Planning the social, physical and emotional aspects of my homecoming was a long, well-considered and intentional process of my recovery. How else would I meld the broken pieces of my family back together?
Along the way of revamping this new Stacie 2.0, many things have had to undergo reconstruction, including our family life, understanding the web of connections that we have built as expats and our roles in both.
Since I was my biggest cheerleader for home-based rehabilitation, it behooved me to make it work… not just for me, but for Johan and the children as well.
It wasn’t easy.
Lulu had to bunk up with her brother, Johan had to continue to play the mom role and all of us needed to put my therapy on the front burner.
Not an easy task for a whole family.
I made house rules, a contract of sorts, outlining our specific roles and what we could expect from one another.
For example, Johan had to sign that he would “do the mornings”. That, no matter what, he wouldn’t schedule anything that conflicted with getting the children up, fed and to the bus.
It very clearly outlined what the kids had to do or not do. For instance, they had to keep their things tidy and be responsible for writing their issues, their messages and things that they just wanted to discuss with me on the refrigerator for dinner time.
I had to sign that I would not miss a dinner. I had to promise to be available, physically and emotionally, each evening. Further, I had to commit to my therapy by giving my all.
It still hangs on the refrigerator as a gentle reminder... but that’s not even the beginning of what we had to organise.
Katja (bless her) organised our friends to deliver us dinner each evening, I had to teach Johan all the tips and tricks of mom life, all of my therapies had to be researched, all potential therapists interviewed, my daily schedule crafted… all from my hospital bedside.
Together we did it. We made sure that I had a safe, comfortable space to recover.
All of that changed the minute we left Tokyo. My training wheels were suddenly taken off!
Abruptly, all of the comforts of home seemed to disappear, albeit in an expected way. One minute you have your rhythm, which is very important to a person suffering from a neurological dysfunction, and then summertime, with it’s bright and shiny façade, rolls in.
It was a change that we saw coming, even planned for, but it still took me some time to hit the ground running.
There were a lot of firsts during our stay in Switzerland.
The first time staying alone with the kids.
The first time I was responsible for their meals.
The first time…
All things that I could have done in my sleep before! (In fact, I have done most of them in my sleep before.)
The responsibility was, at times, oppressive. There were days when I would have liked to stay in bed, watching Netflix and eating boatloads of Ben & Jerry’s.
There were times when I had to seriously pull myself up, give me a talkin’ to and tell myself all of the reasons I had to fight.
And when that didn’t work, I fell down the rabbit hole of despair… like the time I lost it at the witch doctor or enduring the stalking-like behaviour of one certain camp counselor.
Cognitively, I grew significantly over those eight weeks.
Take the ferret-of-a-man, the camp counselor, who was making my life, and that of my daughter’s, utterly miserable while Johan was out of town. That situation made me practice my problem solving skills.
My insides were screaming, ”Hey, that deserves a slap in the face!”. So my brain had its work cut out for her, trying to come with a solution that was fitting.
With the stroke, my basic executive functions were severely compromised. Things like the ability to emotionally regulate myself, which would come in handy at times, were reduced to that of a toddler in early days.
Through all of my work, the non-traditional methods like meditation and essential oils, coupled with the traditional therapeutic approaches, I began to act more like an adolescent and then more like a young adult.
Emotionally, I did the work. How I managed not to slap that man in the face (which I would have enjoyed just a few short months ago) was a token of that work. I showed a level of emotional constraint which have not been possible following my stroke.
So, about that summer…
Yes, my summer was good. Very good.
I got to reconnect with my children and my husband.
My cognitive and emotional sides grew up.
And, although there wasn’t any tennis for me, I spent much of my time walking or simply sitting in the fresh mountain air, and coming home to the best BBQs… made with love from a mom and a wife who is getting better.
All my love to Johan….to Lulu, to Friso and to Cleo,
Sx
Me and Instagram, we’re old friends…
