When Something Has to Change
Moving to Germany with my kids was never something I imagined I would do—especially not to a place that had once been mine.
Because while I spoke the language, my children didn’t. And somewhere underneath all the planning and practicalities, there was a quieter weight I carried with me—knowing this part might be harder for them because I hadn’t expected to bring them here to live here.
And still, for a long time, I had the feeling that something had to change.
It wasn’t loud or dramatic, nor did it arrive all at once.
It sat quietly in the background of my days—in the overwhelm, in the heaviness of ordinary things, in the sense that I was holding everything together, but only just.
That was where the meditation began, if I’m honest. Not from calm—but from the need for it.
And then, somehow, things began to move.
Not in a chaotic way. In a strangely ordered one.
A job came up. Not something I chased desperately, but something that felt… placed. Even though I went through all the proper steps—applications, interviews, waiting—it never quite felt uncertain. As if the door had already been opened, and I was simply walking through it.
Around the same time, the apartment appeared.
Again, not forced. Not fought for. Just… there.
Two of the biggest pieces of a life change, arriving quietly at the same moment my own life had begun to feel a little bleak.
Not perfect. Not easy. But undeniably… a way forward.
A Return That Didn’t Feel Simple
And yet—it led back to Germany.
A place I had grown up in, but never quite felt at home.
I had left when I was twenty, carrying that feeling with me. That everything was a little too strict, too structured, too tightly boxed in. That I didn’t quite fit the shape of things there.
Ireland had felt different. Softer. Freer. Like I could stretch into my own life without bumping into invisible walls.
So while everything in front of me pointed towards going back—the job, the apartment, the timing that felt almost too aligned to ignore—there was still a quiet voice underneath it all.
A small hesitation.
Are you sure?
Because life at twenty is one thing.
When you are only responsible for yourself, you can follow instinct more easily. You can choose freedom without needing to define it too carefully.
In your mid-forties, with two children beside you, every decision carries more weight. It isn’t just about what feels right. It’s about what will hold.
Moving Abroad with Kids: Talking It Through Together
The girls and I talked about it.
Not in one big, serious conversation—but in lots of smaller ones, scattered through ordinary days. In the car. At the kitchen table. While walking, or packing, or folding clothes we wouldn’t wear again in that same place.
We spoke about what it might feel like—moving to a different country, hearing a different language all around us, not always understanding.
I wanted them to feel part of it. Not carried along by my decision, but included in it.
And they surprised me.
Children have a way of meeting the unknown with a kind of openness we lose somewhere along the way. Where I felt the weight of it, they found curiosity.
There was another layer to it, too—one I didn’t speak about as easily.
I spoke the language. They didn’t.
And somewhere in that, there was a quiet sense of guilt I had to sit with. Not something I wanted to place on them, or even fully give words to at the time—but something I carried gently in the background.
Because this part of the transition, I knew, might feel heavier for them than it did for me.
In truth, it was softer for us than it might have been.
This wasn’t an entirely foreign place. It was, in its own quiet way, familiar.
We had come every year—just for a week or two at a time. Holidays filled with lighter days and different rhythms. The language was always there in the background, half-heard, half-understood. Like music you recognise but don’t quite know the words to.
Moving to a Country with a Different Language: When Language Becomes the Barrier
Still, visiting and living are not the same.
On holidays, a smile and a gesture are enough. But everyday life asks more of you.
It asks you to listen properly. To try and keep going when you get things wrong again and again.
I remember the quiet exhaustion of those early days.
The constant translating in my head. The pause before speaking. The small relief when someone switched to English—and the small disappointment in myself when they did.
Even simple things felt like small mountains.
But then—so did the victories.
Hearing one of the girls use a new word, as if it had always belonged to her or coming home from school telling me that she had found a new friend.
Little by little, the unfamiliar began to soften.
Learning to Stay Present in the Unknown
If mindfulness taught me anything before we left, it was this: you don’t have to have everything figured out to take the next step.
And living here deepened that lesson in ways I couldn’t have expected.
Because when you don’t understand everything, you have no choice but to be present. To listen more carefully, observe and slow down.
There’s a strange kind of peace in that, eventually.
Not at the beginning—no. At the beginning, it feels like standing in the middle of noise you can’t quite make sense of.
But over time, the noise becomes rhythm. And the rhythm becomes something you can move with.
Arriving Willing
We didn’t arrive fluent.
We arrived with history. With questions. With children watching how we would meet it all.
And, more importantly than anything else—
We arrived willing.
