.SOMETIMES RAW.

I love traveling. Going somewhere for the sake of seeing a new place, experience something I haven’t before or learning about the world, is reason enough to plan a trip. The itch to explore is naturally the main reason I travel. It is fun! There is another, less obvious, aspect of going away that deserves some attention though: the feeling of coming home, and this new perspective I have gained upon my return.

It might be silly to go somewhere simply for the pleasure of returning home again. It is the inverted, negative copy of traveling: the purpose of which isn’t going somewhere, but rather, returning to something. Some say that it is the most savory part of the trip. That no matter how magical the journey, there really is no place like home. And there is nothing like a trip to remind me of that fact. This is, of course, under the supposition that I have a home life worth returning to. In other cases, the trip instead works as a reminder of that very fact. In either circumstance, in the moment of returning, I am led to feel something, or see something from a perspective I didn’t have previously. I am able to observe my life at home clearly with the veil of everyday normalcy briefly lifted. The comparison to locations and lifestyles I have encountered in that new place I just returned from makes it possible to determine whether I am happy to be home, or wish I could have stayed at that other place. The direct and instantaneous reaction to this comparison is difficult to ignore. The Corona Pandemic and Lockdown may have been part of all this.

Traveling to my parent’s place: there is this familiar smell which is the same since my childhood. It always will be and means “happy place”, warmth and love. I don’t notice the smell of my own home until I leave and return again. The morning light in my bedroom is normal to me, nothing I either appreciate or dislike until I have been away from it for a few nights. Once I have seen, smelled, heard, touched, and experienced something a few times, my brain might as well autopilot things for a while until something new and exciting happens. And my everyday at-home-routines are definitely not new and exciting enough to waste brainwaves on. Until I go away for a while. All of a sudden, upon returning, my home becomes that new place worthy to discover. For a short period of time at least. Just until the brain realized is it just good old Kansas I have returned to, red slipperless and yellow brick road-free as can be. No matter whether I find coming home to be the best of the worst or maybe just a tolerable part of traveling, it is no doubt an important one.

Most importantly, the two more things I need to feel at home: My son and my partner. Ever since moving to Vienna, I have started identifying more and more with a turtle taking my home with me everywhere I go. These days, even though I still feel like this turtle sometimes, my son and partner are my shell. As long as I have them with me, there will always be a sense of belonging, of being home. And, if you find me curled up in my cozy corner, reading a good book with a glass of wine in hand, my calmly decorated room full of books and filled with the smell of food slowly cooking from the kitchen (my partner), my favorite jazz playlist playing on my laptop, with a few lit candles, you can safely assume I will be quite at ease and content. Even though my son is building a cave next to me. I am happy as long as both are around. Because as it turns out, home isn’t a certain place. Home isn’t even where I hang my hat. Home is where my heart is which is wherever and whenever I am hanging out with myself first and then with the people I love the most.

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: If there is any reaction, both are transformed.” – Carl Jung

When I think about romance, I think of two kinds of relationships. The opposite attracts and kindred spirit relationships. The former is the classic and the one we are taught to aspire to as kids. This couple is made up of two opposites, centered around the passion and attraction that causes mystery. We are curious and drawn to other beings because of their dissimilarities to ourselves. It makes sense to be fascinated by our counterparts, and we can learn a lot by hanging out with our polar opposite. Not to mention the biological sense behind falling in love with someone physically different from us to have happy, healthy, genetically mixed babies with if this is your thing. No, there won’t be a second baby for me.

My romance of choice is the latter, though. For the last couple of months, I have been in love with my kindred spirit. I am sure this type of relationship has been around for as long as the opposite attracts version, but it seems to be going through a renaissance. In a society where feminism is becoming mainstream, and where equality is slowly starting to be valued over tradition, a new type of relationship goal is natural.

For those of us who care very little about tradition and gender, and a lot more about self-realization and freedom of societal demands, a romance is less about who opens the door for whom and who picks up the check on a date. Instead, it is more about being heard and seen and encouraged and wanted. In all departments. For who you are. Not for the typical properties of your gender. To be honest, I never want to be treated as The Woman of the relationship. I want to be treated as Daniela – an equal. And when I look at my partner, I don’t see The Man. I see my soulmate. I see a person I am passionately in love with. I couldn’t care less about his masculinity. After years and years of dating and being in relationships and marriages, I wonder what that could possibly have to do with anything at all.

When I look at my partner, I instead see my teammate and my coach. My manager and best friend, my personal trainer, and my inspiration. I see someone who got my back and makes me feel courageous. I see a capable, beautiful, fascinating human being whom I cannot get enough of, but sometimes get fed up with, too.

This type of relationship might not be for everyone, but it works for us. We might be two people, but we share our life. We get on each other’s nerves, argue, and make up together. And I think this is why I am passionately in love with him. Because of what we have already done together, and the potential of what we will do together in the future.

What works for us:

• We ask questions: all of them, even the tough ones. And then we listen attentively.
• Dress up for each other. Go out on dates.
• We go for long walks, reconnect, look at things together. Sometimes that is all it takes.
• We surprise each other. Physical things such as flowers, little gifts, or spontaneous trips.
• We support each other’s evolvement, even if it is sometimes scary.
• We laugh at each other’s jokes. Even the lame ones. I am a pretty funny Piefke.
• We start projects together.
• We read books together. Read to each other. Talk about what we read.
• We respect the classics: honesty, loyalty, trust, and adoration.
• We have a kitchen-session. We have a glass of wine and talk. And cook. And eat.
• We are generous. With time, with money, with matters of the heart.
• We want to conquer the world together.
• We don’t fear change.
• We have the same rhythm.

Life is too short for toxic relationships. It is time to leave when you exhaust yourself to no avail. Or even worse, when the person who claims to love you treats you with outright unkindness and disrespect. It is NOT normal to feel drained, sad, angry, hopeless, or live in fear when being in a relationship. We are also taught to never give up on love, but what about when love gives up on us or if it never was love, to begin with? I want to focus on things that give me energy instead of drain it, things that give me happiness instead of worry, things that give my everyday life beauty and meaning instead of tension and anxiety.

I am by no means a relationship “expert” and I am walking on thin ice here. But I could assure you that I am not suggesting something as drastic as breaking up or letting a toxic relationship fade out if your partner does not meet at least some of the points listed above. But then again, maybe I am. Actually, yes I am.

“Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question.”– Julian Barnes

You may point out correctly, that it isn’t a real question. Because we don’t have a choice. Who can control how much they love? If you can control it, then it isn’t love. Here are some questions I came up with that give you the choice. Let’s start easy and work our way up.

Would you rather take a bath or take a shower?

Would you rather have skin that changes color based on your emotions or tattoos appear all over your body depicting what you did yesterday?

Would you rather have to fart loudly every time you have a serious conversation or have to burp after every kiss?

Would you rather stay in a relationship with a person who cheated on you or file for divorce?

Would you rather eat a home cooked meal from scratch or heat-up a microwavable meal?

Would you rather be isolating with one child that requires entertaining or multiple children that require you to break up fights over whose turn it is to use a book as a sword?

Would you rather a million butterflies instantly appear from nowhere every time you sneeze or one very angry Canadian black squirrel appear from nowhere every time you cough?

Would you rather be beautiful/handsome but stupid or intelligent but ugly?

Would you rather discover you’ve been walking around naked at your child’s summer camp, or discover you’ve been walking around naked in the background of your partner’s new online conference meeting?

Would you rather be able to see ten minutes into your own future or ten minutes into the future of anyone but yourself?

Would you rather have an easy job working for someone else or work for yourself but work incredibly hard?

Would you rather continue to send your ex emails that he/she don’t respond to or stop altogether?

Would you rather eat the same meal for the rest of your life or never use Instagram and Facebook again?

Would you rather wake up with a different face but same gender or different gender but same face?

Would you rather insist and fight for child support payments until it is paid or give up because he/she has “clearly other priorities” than his/her own child?

Would you rather be stuck in the house with a mother of two children (or more) who has been on lockdown for months, or in a room with a swarm of murder hornets?

Would you rather begin every sentence with “Hey Idiot” or end every sentence with “…Ha Ha, I Was Just Kidding.”

Would you rather make love with the lights off or with the lights on?

Would you rather be trapped in a small elevator with an old lady and her wet dog or one fat man with bad breath?

Would you rather have an Austrian accent and live in Germany or a German accent and live in Austria?

Would you rather bake bread from scratch, or scroll through your Instagram feed muttering about people who have time to bake bread from scratch?

Would you rather teach your child a new craft, or lie on the couch and stare at the unwashed pile of dishes in the sink?

Would you rather give your six-year-old your password to download games on your phone only to find you have paid Euro 1578 in Candy Crush extras, or have to play Lego with him/her 17 hours a day?

Would you rather facilitate a PTA (parent/teacher association) meeting when schools reopen in the fall or do you prefer to fall into a pit of crocodiles?

Would you rather be self-isolating with a child who insists on re-watching the same episode of Teletubbies, or the same episode of Elmo’s World?

Would you rather never have to play The Floor Is Lava again, or have fancy couch cushions that can never be used to build a fort?

Would you rather have a child who is sad because they miss their friends or one that is pretty content with never leaving the house and will argue every single day when school starts back?

Would you rather have your child learn fire juggling or ax throwing?

Would you rather have your Fitbit tell you that 100 steps a day is actually really good, or have it send you an alert to shame you whenever you sit down longer than ten minutes?

Would you rather your hair turn gray in front of your male colleagues, reminding them that mothers over 30 are just hot like that, or color your hair?

Would you rather hear that Count Chocula Cereal is nutritious, or Mary Poppins is real and living with you?

Would you rather have the ability to freeze time, or the ability to unsee things like Instagram posts about how magical someone’s year of homeschooling on the ranch was?