Two.

Happy New Year!

20 January 2020 was when I joined my new job. I can’t believe it’s already been 2 years since I started living and working in Germany. At times it feels like yesterday and sometimes it feels like I’ve been here forever.

As I’ve mentioned in one of my previous posts, in 2020 I was moving to Germany with or without a job. My focus was primarily on improving my German to maybe work part-time, or do something totally random. I would’ve gone to the job centre, taken up a job as a sales rep, learnt more German and so on. I never doubted my capabilities and it’s not that I wasn’t willing to aim for the best or aim for a space job in my case, but I was basically at a point in my life where I was just ok to do whatever I got. Even if it was just learning German and meeting people. I would’ve been content with it. Never ever would I have imagined getting an English speaking job in the space domain here in Europe.

My 4 months vacation in Wedel in the summer of 2019 (read here and here), when I still had my job in India and was just experimenting a new life in Germany, was so fruitful that I was ready to come here and live like that till I figured out life and could even question myself “What next..?”. I felt part of a community and even though I was not working, I had somewhere to go to each day of the week. It was just an amazing phase where I met so many people and learnt immensely from them. I was enjoying learning German and was falling in love with it with every passing lesson. But now that I think about it, had I not got this present job in 2020, and had I stuck to the plan of living that old Wedel life, it would all have come crashing down once the Pandemic struck. All groups I knew, German classes, community breakfasts, even meeting another person, everything came to a halt and without any work or purpose, that could have had a detrimental effect on my mental health and overall well-being (talking only about me as a person). Well, I could’ve learnt German online, in fact I would’ve. But you get my point, right? When I think about “what could’ve been…”, I feel obliged to be grateful for “what is…”. And I truly am.

I began working here a few months before the start of the lockdowns, so that was really wonderful. I could meet my team mates in person, meet for lunches and dinners, socialise with friends and colleagues. I was also spending a lot of time with DB (Deutsche Bahn). Every alternate weekend, I would take the 4 hour train to Wedel to be at home with my husband. Some weekends my husband visited me, but the studio apartment I was renting here in Darmstadt was miniscule so we mostly spent weekends at our bigger, more comfortable home in Wedel.

Moving to a new country, a new city, a new apartment and re-entering a new phase of long distance relationship or a so called “Wochenendebeziehung” aka “weekend relationship” were minor issues in front of my happiness and excitement of starting a space job in Europe. It was my first job in Spacecraft Operations and being fairly new to it, I knew I had a lot to learn. In the last 2 years I did gather plenty of knowledge about satellites and space operations, with still a lot more to learn in the coming years.

On the personal and professional front, I am at a happy place today and I hope things only get better from here on.

Thanks for flying by my orbit! I will be back for more random posts (and hopefully I will be more regular this year). That’s a new year resolution I wish to stick to!