When we moved to Innsbruck, we gave ourselves one year to re-evaluate our decision whether to live here long term or to move somewhere else. As we started integrating with the people and community around us, we started feeling increasingly concerned by a series of events that happened with us and we felt stuck with limited freedom to explore and expand our minds.
In addition to the sad situation of racism in Innsbruck, we were feeling a bit lost on how to connect with the community around us. Please don't take us wrong here. The people who lived in this community were genuinely happy being part of it. They found a way to live in peace with this community. But we couldn't strike that balance during the time we were there. We started feeling increasingly uncomfortable as to whether Tirol was the right place for us to live and raise our child, especially with the lifestyle we chose. With our idea of making a living, we were frequently sticking out as outliers and we seemed to have constantly pushed the boundaries of other people around us. We realised that if we continued to live here, it would be a path with a lot of confrontation which would take up a lot of our time. With everything we were trying to do differently from what is considered "normal", we seemed to be hinting (at least that's the impression we got) that there is something wrong with what others were doing. Also, the conversations and discussions we had with our close ones seemed to imply that there is only one (right) way to do things and any kind of suggestion for a change was not appreciated. We felt that it was getting very challenging to simply live the life we wanted to live without continuously having to justify or explain ourselves to others. We think we were not a good fit for Tirol and Tirol was simply not a good fit for us.
In addition to this, a few other things bothered us. For Kathi, the idea of settling down in general and in Tirol specifically (which indirectly in our minds meant that we are going to be in this region for the rest of our lives) started feeling scary. Even though this idea excited us before we moved to Innsbruck, once we got here and lived here, it felt very suffocating. Also for her, to conform with norms of the society around us, we would have to stay at one place and buy a house. This would have required us to take a loan, get a full-time job and work for a very long time just to be able to payoff the mortgage. In turn, the house and the mortgage might become a big part of our life decisions in future. This idea felt very unsettling for Kathi.
Sam had his own struggles to be as he always was and speaking up about the things he felt were unfair or discriminatory. Even when he wanted to raise an issue, he was told that he was non-conforming and trying to change the equilibrium that others were happy to live with. We got a feeling, being asked directly and indirectly, to just leave things the way they were and find a least resistant path to survive. Another interesting thing was about the rights of citizens. As an immigrant, Sam got a very strong feeling that if something unfair/illegal was done to him or to our baby (by authorities or strangers) because of the color of their skin (we had a strong reason to believe this due to a series of racist incidents and us realising that no one seemed to be aware of what rights they have as Austrian citizens or what rights immigrants have), almost no one would stand by us or counsel us regarding how to go about it, except possibly asking us to just let it go and move on with our lives.
It was not just one reason, but a combination of many incidents, conversations, and observations that led us to make the decision that we were not able to settle down in Innsbruck. Definitely not at this stage of life.
Since the time we decided to be together, the plan was always to move to Tirol and settle down there. Even though it did not work out, we are happy that we tried it and we now know it is not for us. We don't know where we want to settle or if we ever want to settle, but at least for now we think we want to explore different parts of the world and different ways people live and interact with their communities. This decision turned our feeling of suffocation into the feeling of freedom and excitement.
With the clarity about not staying in Tirol but traveling for some time again, we were very excited about the arrival of our baby and we were looking forward to exploring wonderful places around the world and show them to our baby.
In addition to the sad situation of racism in Innsbruck, we were feeling a bit lost on how to connect with the community around us. Please don't take us wrong here. The people who lived in this community were genuinely happy being part of it. They found a way to live in peace with this community. But we couldn't strike that balance during the time we were there. We started feeling increasingly uncomfortable as to whether Tirol was the right place for us to live and raise our child, especially with the lifestyle we chose. With our idea of making a living, we were frequently sticking out as outliers and we seemed to have constantly pushed the boundaries of other people around us. We realised that if we continued to live here, it would be a path with a lot of confrontation which would take up a lot of our time. With everything we were trying to do differently from what is considered "normal", we seemed to be hinting (at least that's the impression we got) that there is something wrong with what others were doing. Also, the conversations and discussions we had with our close ones seemed to imply that there is only one (right) way to do things and any kind of suggestion for a change was not appreciated. We felt that it was getting very challenging to simply live the life we wanted to live without continuously having to justify or explain ourselves to others. We think we were not a good fit for Tirol and Tirol was simply not a good fit for us.
In addition to this, a few other things bothered us. For Kathi, the idea of settling down in general and in Tirol specifically (which indirectly in our minds meant that we are going to be in this region for the rest of our lives) started feeling scary. Even though this idea excited us before we moved to Innsbruck, once we got here and lived here, it felt very suffocating. Also for her, to conform with norms of the society around us, we would have to stay at one place and buy a house. This would have required us to take a loan, get a full-time job and work for a very long time just to be able to payoff the mortgage. In turn, the house and the mortgage might become a big part of our life decisions in future. This idea felt very unsettling for Kathi.
Sam had his own struggles to be as he always was and speaking up about the things he felt were unfair or discriminatory. Even when he wanted to raise an issue, he was told that he was non-conforming and trying to change the equilibrium that others were happy to live with. We got a feeling, being asked directly and indirectly, to just leave things the way they were and find a least resistant path to survive. Another interesting thing was about the rights of citizens. As an immigrant, Sam got a very strong feeling that if something unfair/illegal was done to him or to our baby (by authorities or strangers) because of the color of their skin (we had a strong reason to believe this due to a series of racist incidents and us realising that no one seemed to be aware of what rights they have as Austrian citizens or what rights immigrants have), almost no one would stand by us or counsel us regarding how to go about it, except possibly asking us to just let it go and move on with our lives.
It was not just one reason, but a combination of many incidents, conversations, and observations that led us to make the decision that we were not able to settle down in Innsbruck. Definitely not at this stage of life.
Since the time we decided to be together, the plan was always to move to Tirol and settle down there. Even though it did not work out, we are happy that we tried it and we now know it is not for us. We don't know where we want to settle or if we ever want to settle, but at least for now we think we want to explore different parts of the world and different ways people live and interact with their communities. This decision turned our feeling of suffocation into the feeling of freedom and excitement.
With the clarity about not staying in Tirol but traveling for some time again, we were very excited about the arrival of our baby and we were looking forward to exploring wonderful places around the world and show them to our baby.
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