Definition of Identity Crisis…

You all must surely know the saying “if you look up the word crazy in the dictionary your face would be beside it”! I feel like someone should say that about me…lately I find that I could be the definition of crazy and also of identity crisis. According to some psychology guy Erik Erikson, the identity crisis is most commonly found in the teenage years…well, fast forward about 10 years later for me and here we are in present-day Switzerland with two filled-to-capacity suitcases!

I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about this transition but mostly I’m scared. I’m not at ease about this, I’m not completely sad about leaving or completely happy about my return to GA.

Today I went to church at IPC for the last time and then walked around Zürich with Dawn and we caught up on the last two months of each other’s lives. As we walked I was overcome with love for this place…this city, this country, my family (those two precious little girls), my life here! How can I leave it now? I don’t know how!

Being an au pair is such a cool experience. It is filled with valuable life lessons. For me, it was filled with so much opportunity to see Europe on a larger scale than a week’s vacation would allow. But the one lesson I learned most is that everything is constantly changing: people leave, new people come, and life continues…perhaps not the same as it was before but it goes on…and it certainly will after I leave as well.

I’ve said, since the first of my friends left over a year ago, that it’s much easier to be the person leaving than the one left behind; the person leaving is on to new things with their mind elsewhere, for the person staying their world is the same but now with a hole where the departed once stood. I sure hope this week proves theory that to be true! I’ve been told that I’m on to an exciting new life…one where I get to make new choices about where to work, what car to drive, even what cell phone company to use…I’m sure it should be exciting but I’m just scared!

The next few days will be very hectic and sad for me. I will most likely not be posting again from Switzerland. My flight is Thursday…I left the US to move here on September 11^th, 2006 and I move back to the US on December 11^th, 2008-two years and three months exactly. I wish sometimes I could just forget the last two years ever happened; maybe then my heart wouldn’t hurt so much. To forget it, though, would be to forget also my Swiss family and my many traveling experiences and my beautiful friends…all things I never want to keep far from my thoughts.

On the Wikipedia website (if they say it, it must be true!) addressing identity crisis, it states that Erikson believed “only individuals who succeed in resolving the crisis will be ready to face future challenges in life”. (I wouldn’t be me-the ultimate drama queen-if I didn’t say this…) I hope I make it through!!

For most of you I’ll see you States side in a few days and for the rest of you I’ll see you when I see you…I love you all!

LuLu