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Four and a half years ago I was given a piece of wisdom that I have held onto to get me through all the difficult times in my life. I was in the hospital at the time and the psychiatrist that was treating me pulled me aside and told me it take a hundred days for things to be okay. He went on to explain how in a hundred days, a new habit (or habits) are formed and that in his experience after a hundred days things seem to hurt less. Maybe its because of new habits but what I took from it was that a hundred days is just the right amount of time to look back on things in a new light. Since then I count the milestones in my life by the hundredth day mark and today marks my hundredth day in Germany.
In the past hundred days I've gone from excitement at my arrival, to frustration at my alienation, which led to some homesickness and resentment at my situation but now after the landslide of strong emotions I now feel comfort. I have a home here, I have a family here, I'm even getting a hang of the language (understanding how it works at least, I will not be conversing any time soon). I still have my doubts for sure but the hundred days isn't supposed to mean that everything is suddenly peachy-keen it just means that it hurts less. Being away from everyone I know and love hurts less, being a new environment hurts less, and even though I don't know what I am going to do here my feelings are no longer as dour. While this milestone was more of calculated risk then the free-fall I oft find myself in it does not make this experience so far any less impactful on the path my life is headed in, and now a hundred days in there nowhere to go but up or forward, rather to continue my metaphor.
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