Love and Marriage

Since 2011 I am married. Our wedding day was one day after our 10th anniversary. Quite a long probation period!

Now I have started this blog and have posted four posts so far - one introductory post, one about my cats and two more or less about my family/sisters. My husband's reaction to this was: "Interesting to see your priorities: your sisters and the cats are more important to you than I am!"

Of course he wasn't being serious. Still, I decided to dedicate the next post to him as "he is such an important part of my life". However, this turns out to be more difficult than I had thought it would be. 

It is hard to write about the "love of your life" or love in general without sounding cheesy and using tons of bathetic set phrases (for the easier identification I highlighted them with inverted commas above and in the following).

But fact is that I'd be utterly "lost without him"! Even though we are in some respects the complete opposite we seem to complement each other somehow. Not that we don't argue - we argue a lot. I'd say we have minor quarrels every day - but we don't have bigger disputes more than four times a month and I guess that's pretty good, right?

We are both not very romantic. I mean I'd love to be but somehow romantic gestures turn out to be extremely ridiculous or awkward in reality. My aspirations to be more romantic once made me compose a poem for my husband, for example, but it only made him feel extremely weird  and it would be one of his greatest nightmares if I e.g. made a public declaration of love to him. And I am not different in this respect: when we married in the registry office and the registrar played Elton John's Can you feel the love tonight on a CD for us it was a real struggle for me not to laugh out loud.

Now one could say that writing about my husband in my blog somehow is a public declaration of love. So why do I write about him? 
The answer is quite simple: This blog is about all the things that bother, affect or concern me. And when I say that a public declaration of love would be a real nightmare for him (and me), I am talking about the kinds of public acts of self-display where you force other people to witness your presentation. If someone reads this blog, on the contrary, he or she decides to do so him-/herself, so it's quite different.

And in the end I have to say that my "semi-public (i.e. blog-wise) declaration of love" for my husband is in fact a very simple one, no cheesy set phrases, no in-your-face display of affection:
He's my husband and I love him.

Changes

Even though I would like to describe myself as a spontaneous person that embraces changes in her life I must admit that I am not. It probably sounds boring but I love the secure feeling continuity conveys. That's also the reason why I am not a big traveller in spite of the fact that I love to dream about travelling to foreign places. New things and changes always scare me and put me on edge.
Paradoxically, at the same time I never tend to be content with the present situation. I am always like: "If this or that changed in my life, I'd be so much happier!" 
So there I am waiting for things to change and then when finally something changes I am not satisfied either.

However, I try to improve myself in this respect because new things certainly are not always bad and have the potential to make you happier. And there is nothing you cannot get used to.

That's why I plan to try out a lot of new things this year and as the beginning of the year and springtime for me epitomize change, rebirth and the possibility of a new start, I have already started to put this plan into action (this blog is just one example of the new things I am trying out at the moment).

But now my newfound readiness to cope with changes is put to the test. I've mentioned before that my sisters don't live near me. One is living in Ireland and I only see her twice to three times a year. I was able to see the other one more often because she is living in Germany but this weekend I learned that she will soon move to Ireland as well.

Now don't get me wrong: I am very happy for my sister and her husband. They have a house in Ireland and it was clear from the beginning that sooner or later they'd move there. But it also makes me sad because I won't be able to see them as often as before. And I am afraid that later when they start a family I will be a stranger to their kids.

I know that it isn't easy for my sister and her husband as well and that they will be leaving Germany with "one laughing and one crying eye" (a German saying).

Yet I am determined to see the positive aspects of this change as well (or even to fight down my anxieties connected to it).

1. I will have two sisters living in Ireland which practically makes me Semi-Irish as well.
2. I might see them more seldom but at least when we will meet it will be for longer periods of time.
3. When I visit Ireland I have the choice of two accomodations: the artist's chalet situated close to the sea but also close to Galway City and the married couples' modern family house with a romantic air placed in the middle of nowhere.
4. More reasons to visit Ireland!
5. The comforting fact that I know that my other sister now has part of our family close to her.

And in the end I have to stick to what the great Eckhart Tolle has said:

"Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge."

Family

Some changes look negative on the surface, but you will soon realize, that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge. --> http://myzitate.de/stichwoerter.php?q=Veranderung

Leopold and Emma

Today I drove home from work and wasn't in a bad mood at all. I was enthusiastic about my plans for the evening (actually nothing special but at the moment I'm trying to be enthusiastic even about "normal" things and to enjoy my everyday life). However, I had to do the shopping first and an undefinable slimy something on the handle of my shopping cart (which of course, I only noticed when I grabbed the cart and touched it) "made my day". Even my little emergency disinfectant in my handbag and the baby wipes I purchased while desperately trying not to freak out couldn't lift my spirit again.
Luckily, there is one thing which most of the time guarantees that I return home with a smile on my face: my cats. 
I have two cats, a female cat named Emma and a male, Leopold.
Emma is six years old, a tabby cat, usually looks very elegant but swears like a trooper when she's hungry. Leopold, two years old, on the other hand has a voice like Liza Minelli (that's why we sometimes call him Liza, too), resembles a cotton ball and has a somewhat autistic look.
I can't understand why some people call cats evil - yes, they are egocentric and I am sure Emma would willingly desert me for a piece of ham but still they are adorable, and funny, and cuddly, and mysterious, and I just melt away when they give me that intense look and slowly start to blink.
When I come home from work, I open the door and usually two cats jump out into the staircase, their tails pointing up into the air, they sound a happy "Miau" (German for "Meow/Miaow") and then follow me inside. A perfect welcome and one that even makes you forget the snot on the shopping cart. 

 

 

 

 

Leopold and Emma

Leo a.k.a. Liza a.k.a. Cotton Ball

Emma

Of Sisters and Sheep

I have two older sisters and I have always been proud of the relationship we have. They are not just my sisters but also my best friends.
Unfortunately, I am still living in the city where I was born whereas my sisters moved away. That is hard for me sometimes but it makes me appreciate much more the time we spend together.
I am very proud of my sisters because they both have proven that it is worth it to fight for one's dreams.
They are both extremely (and sometimes frightfully) prolific in what they are doing: painting, drawing, crocheting, knitting, baking, sewing, taking pictures, writing. And I must admit that it is sometimes a little intimidating. Because in this respect, I have been the black sheep of the family: I haven't done a lot creative-wise these past years. But eventually I have realized that I actually miss it. 
To create things is such a great source of pleasure and contentment and in the end even though the works of my sisters can be intimidating they are primarily inspiring and so I decided to make some space for creativity in my life again. 
Yes, I often miss my sisters but it is also nice to see that even though they live miles away from here, they still have a good influence on me!

Little heart-shaped quilted cushion, a painting and a mini book with poems and quotes about sisters (all gifts by my sisters) and a necklace with a triquetra pendant (we all have one of these)

PS: You have to check out my sister's Blog "A Beautiful Hue" and you'll understand what I mean by calling her inspiring.  

The Beginning - or my little big bang theory

The first time that I had the idea to create my own blog must have been over two years ago. And ever since it has been one of my favorite daydream topics. I would imagine how I would write about certain things in my life which I found worthy of sharing with other people and I really liked the whole idea about it. I thought about an adequate name, the subjects I could write about or how I would design the layout and so on.

But days, weeks and months passed - and I did nothing. The whole thing had started to be such a nice dream for me that I was afraid of not meeting my expectations about it. The thought about actually starting a blog even scared me.

And that's a problem I often have and what I like to call my very own little big bang theory: I decide that I really would like to start something new but then I don't do it because I always postpone it as I want to make sure that I start it with a big bang, i.e. I want it to be PERFECT.

With regard to the blog, I didn't want to start it before I was sure about the subjects I wanted to write about, the whole layout and design (and I mean every tiny detail), and ideally I wanted to have "pre-written" the first - say - 30 posts and every single one of them worthy of the Nobel Prize in Literature, of course.

Naturally, this expectation was aimed much too high so that it was certain that I could never meet it. 

But if I never try out new things because I could fail in the end - isn't that the biggest failure of all?

So now I decided that I should be content to start something new with a silent and unassertive *plop* rather than only dreaming about the big *Bang*. 

I don't have much more than a name at this moment but I have finally got used to the idea of this blog as a work-in-progress. And - after all - isn't this the whole point of a blog?

My name is Sibylle and this is my new blog.

I hope you'll enjoy it.

*plop*