The Merger

I’ve noticed something funny about my name since I’ve been in Europe, and that’s that my name is…well… funny. If I would have always lived my life in the States, I never would have thought such a thing, but here in Europe it’s a topic of interest. I’ve now been to four countries, and in each country they pronounce my name differently, none of them being truly “correct” from my point of view but it’s entertaining. The English pronounce it without the ‘r’ at the end (Heathe), the French pronounce it with a ‘z’ instead of the ‘th’ and roll the ‘r’ in the way that the French do (Hezairr), the Swiss/German add a bit of a ‘d’ to the ‘th’ (heatder) and the Italians completely ignore the ‘h’ at the beginning, the ‘th’ becomes a ‘t’, and they roll the ‘r’ at the end (Etterr). One little piccola italian girl has even gone so far as to call me “eater” like we would pronounce it in American English. That particular pronunciation I’m not very fond of (and it's the only one I've corrected), but in any case it’s amusing for me to see how one name can turn into "many".

Speaking of different names, last year, as some of you know, I came into contact with my Italian name, Erica. If you aren't familiar with this particular story, click here to get caught up. Anyway, when I first heard this name I felt very proud and told every Italian or Italian speaker that my name was Erica because it felt really cool to feel like I had an Italian counterpart. This "Erica" person was the best part of me, in my opinion, and resembled the kind of person "Heather" wanted to be; simple, easy-going, light-hearted, confident, direct and decisive. I identified highly with this name and actually at one point started to prefer Europeans calling me Erica, not only because it was easier for them to pronounce, but also because I liked her better than myself at the time.

I am one of those people who finds a message in pretty much everything, so when my mother sent me two little descriptions on what each of my names mean, I was amazed. Each of the descriptions fit me almost perfectly, and I'll post them here below:

Heather: Your name of Heather makes you easy-going and refined, but detracts from your physical vitality. You desire all the finer things in life--lovely clothes, home, furniture, and environment. However, procrastination is your worst enemy, and you find yourself lacking the ambition to make your dreams a reality often because of lack of confidence. People are inclined to take advantage of your sympathetic, tractable nature. You naturally attract people with problems who seek your understanding and advice. Though the name Heather creates the urge to understand and help others, we emphasize that it causes procrastination, lack of confidence, and the inability to realize your goals and ambitions. 

Erica: Your name of Erica makes you very idealistic and generous, with the strong desire to uplift humanity leading you into situations where you can express your desire to serve others. You want to assume responsibilities and to look after people; however, you can become too involved in other people's problems and tend to worry. Your name gives you a natural desire to express along artistic and musical lines. You desire a settled home and family life, and are expressive and attentive to your loved ones. Although the name Erica creates the urge to be reliable and responsible, we emphasize that it causes an emotional intensity that is hard to control. 

As you can see, the two are completely different, and the funny thing is that I really felt like two different people; when I was Erica and when I was Heather. The strange thing, though, is that this year I no longer hear the name "Erica". It's as if everyone forgot that I had a second name, and it's made me think about why this time she's not in my life. Well, I did hear it once in Switzerland, but it felt like an alien name; a name I could no longer identify with, a name that no longer filled me with pride and joy like it did before. And then one day it suddenly hit me--the two different parts of me have merged into one.

After ruminating over this for a while, I realized that this merger happened way before I got to Italy in June. It started months before, when I started taking better care of myself. It began with putting more of my heart and soul into my room, adorning the unfinished parts with bright colors and creative designs, making my room a truer expression of myself. Even though it was literally only some changes to my room, it felt like I was making changes within myself, painting my soul with vibrancy, creativity, and life. It began when I started taking better care of my body, setting goals to eat healthier, lose weight, and exercise regularly. As it turned out, losing weight was not only a physical journey for me, but a mental and emotional one. It wasn't until I started reading A Course in Weight Loss, by Marianne Williamson that I realized each of the reasons why I was overeating. This gave me a completely new perspective and understanding of myself and life in general, but most of all, it allowed me to be more patient and loving with myself in a way that I'd never been before.

And then the last big event I can think of that deeply affected my character was when I released the need to be the "oldest", the smartest, the best, etc. My sisters played a huge part in helping me become the person I am today, because it was they who brought it all to my attention. Actually they always have, but I wasn't ready to hear it until a short time ago. For example, I was always known as the uptight one of the family, the one with a short temper and the one who got offended really easily, and it was for this reason that I never truly felt loved by my own family. It wasn't until my sisters and I had a very long, painful yet meaningful conversation that I saw it from a different perspective. I realized that I was causing this distance between my family members and I, and that I needed to be better than them, therefore pushing them away. I was uptight because I thought I had to be somebody else around them, and the two (the real me and the fake me) clashed--bad. It was only after this realization that I could let go of the person I thought I needed to be and just become myself. I will always be grateful to them for loving me enough to always tell me the truth, even when it isn't pretty.

With these three, very big changes in my life, I can see why the two names merged. I've started becoming the person I've always wanted to be, releasing the need for anyone "else" to be in my life. I will always be grateful to Erica for showing me a much more simple, joyous way of life in my time of need; a life without the stress of family dynamics, weight issues, and lack of self-love. She infused this lively way of being into my soul, and there is where she will stay. I still have issues to work through, and I may always be emotionally intense, get too involved in other people's problems, and procrastinate when I shouldn't, but I love seeing the changes that I choose to make come to life on a daily/monthly/yearly basis.

So I'm here to present to you who I am, the good and the not so good, whether you accept me or not. Hello world, my name is Heather, and even if you can't pronounce it correctly, Heather I shall remain.

Adoption

In my opinion, there are a million great things about Switzerland: their various food products such as chocolate, cheese, and bread; their efficient and high quality products known all around the world such as the Swiss Army Knife; their location, which makes traveling easy and forces them to grow up with three or more languages from a very young age; the terrain of the immaculate Swiss Alps that I can’t ever get enough of no matter how long I stare or how many pictures I take; and last but not least, their culture of organization and reliability. It’s a hard decision, but besides the Alps, this aspect of Swiss life I find to be one of the best things about Switzerland…and apparently this lesson came at the perfect time for me.

Before I left for Switzerland, I got chewed out for not being as reliable as I should have been, therefore forcing someone else to do what I should have done. And you know what? That was definitely not the best feeling in the world. How coincidental then that I would spend a week in the most reliable place in the world…funny how that works. Anyway, this particular situation really ground my gears because it’s important to me that people know that they can count on me when something needs to be done. It was especially bothersome because I am usually, in my opinion, very reliable, so this forced me to reevaluate myself.

Though it wasn’t all that fun to think about, I feel fortunate to have been able to do so while surrounded by immense beauty. When something in my life seems like such a huge deal, I need something that will bring me outside of myself in order to see it from another perspective, and the grandeur of the Alps was that something this time. I spent quite a bit of time journaling and thinking, and more often than not, staring at the Alps while sitting on the terrace outside of my friend’s bedroom window. Whenever I looked at these gorgeous mountains, it’s as if all of my problems and all of the thoughts swirling around in my brain didn’t matter anymore; everything became so small in comparison. 

I’m going to digress a bit here and tell you that in the summertime, Switzerland is unbelievably green. I went last year during the winter when everything was snowy and white, so this time it felt like a completely different place. The tallest of the mountains of course still have snow on top, but in the summer all of the shorter ones show off the emerald beauty they have that is concealed underneath the snow for the major part of the year. They feature a million brilliant shades of green, even some shades that I’ve never seen on a mountain before. Everything is vibrant, fresh, and alive. In fact, one of my favorite parts of the week was going up to a little bar/restaurant halfway up the mountain to see how Interlaken looks from a higher point of view. To get there we had to take a ten minute trolley ride, which was a fun new experience for me because as you ascend you start to see everything in a way you couldn’t if you were just walking around on foot. 

Anyway, as Mara and I started walking to the café, I noticed immediately how fresh the air was. It was the freshest, most crisp air I have ever had the pleasure to breathe into my lungs. I wanted to capture some in a jar to take home with me so that I would always have some on hand. It’s impossible to describe with words how it felt going through my respiration system, but it made me feel so grateful that pure air such as this still exists in the world, while also making me wish that it was like this everywhere. When I exhaled, all of the pollution in my mind went with it, leaving me feeling refreshed and ready to handle anything. 

While I was speaking with Mara’s mother, the topic of adoption worked itself into the conversation. No, not child adoption; culture adoption. When you have the chance to travel and see how other people speak, eat, act, and live, you’re able to see your own culture from another perspective, as well as work in all of the aspects you find interesting in other cultures into your own. If you could take all of the best aspects of every culture in the world, you would have a really great personal culture, and it got me thinking; maybe I can’t improve American culture in general, but I can improve my own. 

As stated before, I haven’t exactly been the most reliable person in the world, or the most organized for the past few weeks…well, I’ve never actually been very organized to be honest. So I think it’s the perfect time for me to adopt the organization and reliability aspect of Swiss culture into my life. This means keeping my room clean on a daily basis, writing down and sticking to a plan on what I can do to stay in Italy, writing more regularly than I have been, choosing the foods that make me feel good, and journaling more often to keep my thoughts from becoming a whirlwind of disaster. This also means that I need to take my work more seriously and do what needs to be done when it is asked of me, and even when it is not. This means being able to rely on myself, so that others know that they can rely on me. 

Even though this particular lesson has been kind of a rough one in the way it was handled, I’m glad it came anyway, because it made me realize that I can’t keep on living this way if I want to keep a level of peace in my life. When one or more areas is in disorder or chaos, it’s really hard not to let it affect others because everything is interconnected. It’s easy to think that it doesn’t matter if your room is always a mess, but it really is important because at least for me, the way I’ve been treating my room is the way I’ve been treating my life: throwing things to the side as if they don’t matter, letting things pile up so that it becomes one of the Alps instead of a rolling hill, waking up and going to sleep with an always un-made bed…Basta! Enough! I’m done acting as if the little things don’t make a difference.

In any case, I’m really glad that I don’t have to sign any adoption papers or go through strenuous interviews or live with a child who is likely to have some abandonment issues. Luckily all that is required of me to adopt aspects of culture is to keep an open mind, and while that is sometimes easier said than done, it’s a process I’m more than willing to endure.

The Thing About Rivers

Lately I've been saying a lot about how life is like a river, but I never realized how general that statement is until now. There are a million different types of rivers: tiny ones, huge ones, dry ones, swampy ones, short ones, long ones, shallow ones, deep ones, dangerous ones, still ones, rocky ones, stagnant ones, ones with waterfalls, and ones that have a bit of everything. How do you know which river you are? ...and is it possible to switch? What if your river is scaring you and you don't know how to navigate it safely or have the right tools to do so?

Well, the other day I had time to think about this, while sitting in the middle of a river on a warm rock in Switzerland. As my feet were submerged in the fresh, cold water from the Alps, my chin placed lightly on my right kneecap, and my fingertips caressing the surface of the brook, I realized that just because I feel like I'm finally heading downstream instead of upstream against the current doesn't mean there aren't little rocky bits to surpass or rapids to brave or waterfalls to look out for. And right now, my river is a little bit rocky. Yes, the water of happiness still flows around these rocks, but I can't deny that they are there, seemingly in the way. What are these rocks, you may ask?

At the moment, my river is consumed with trying to find a way to stay here legally, and I am frustrated, scared, and a little bit confused. The questions of "What If?" are swirling around in my head like a hidden whirlpool underneath the surface. What if it's too late for me to find something? What if I need it too much? What if a part of me is still afraid of claiming my dreams as my own and making them real? What if I failed myself all because I was too scared to follow through sooner? What if the desire to stay in Italy has become my only identity, my one and only proof that I'm worth something in this world?

Someone told me not too long ago that if you really love being where you are and you love what you do, then the loose ends become minor details. At first I felt reassured, but the more I thought about this the harder it became for me to trust it, because sometimes those minor details get you into some major trouble. Everyone tells me that Italy's bureaucratic system is laughable, and the fact that they like Americans is a plus, but I still can't shake the feeling that being an illegal immigrant is not the right choice for me. I don't want to always be looking over my shoulder, wondering if I'm going to get deported around every bend in the river. I don't want to go through unnecessary rapids when I know another, more calm path on the river exists. But what if the rapids are unavoidable? And maybe tomorrow I will feel differently or something will magically make itself known, but right now that's how I feel.

So as I'm sitting on a rock in the middle of this beautiful river, I'm starting to realize what kind of river mine is. It's not always still and steady, but I realize that for me one like this would be, well...boring. And in my experience I've noticed that sometimes even though a river seems calm on the surface, there are hidden dangers lurking underneath, waiting to grab ahold of you. It's not stagnant, fortunately; mine has a current that may not always be strong, but it's there, slowly but surely carrying me forward. My river isn't dry or swampy or tiny or enormous or shallow. It has rocky segments, and deep, calm segments; it's the perfect size complete with rapids and waterfalls behind me. There might be rapids and waterfalls ahead of me too that I can't see yet (that I promise I won't chase! ;)), but in any case I'm realizing how beautiful my river is regardless of what shows up around the river bend, because at least it's moving; it's fully alive. I understand now that I wouldn't switch rivers, even if I could. And maybe, just maybe, when I feel like I don't know how to navigate it, there will be someone on the riverbank when I least expect it, guiding me, teaching me how.