When I was 21, I boarded a one-way flight from Boston to Zurich to spend seven months working at a school in Switzerland. I arrived heartbroken from a breakup and unprepared for the loneliness of living abroad. But the experience ultimately taught me how to be alone, independent, and comfortable in my own company.
Introduction
Twenty years ago, I boarded a one way flight from Boston to Zurich. I had never, as I nervously joked, crossed “the big pond” before. I knew a little German because I’d learned the useful phrase “snow-capped mountain” in the months prior to leaving.
I was fresh off the most painful breakup I’d endured. I thought my kind, smart, attractive college boyfriend was probably end game. We had a cute thing going at our college in New York City. I loved him so I came up with a plan for the two of us to move in together, pitching it more as cost savings than a relationship deepener. He was cautiously on board despite doubts. But long before any moving in could happen, we spent a night wandering the streets of lower Manhattan unable to decide together what to do for dinner. He (correctly) observed that what we had wasn’t working, and broke up with me. I was heartbroken, and hungry.
Looking back now it’s obvious I was yearning for life companionship and trying to make the lovely person in front of me fit. But he and we didn’t, and he was willing to say that before I was. Still, I spent weeks and then months almost-comedically mourning the loss. I think what really stuck with me was the feeling that there could have been so many other directions for us. It just might have worked, if only. I listened to a lot of “our song”, Coldplay’s “Green Eyes” (…) and sobbed. In public. (The black comedy part).
Never one for measured and modest life decisions I decided to take a year off school. When an English teaching internship opportunity arose in Switzerland, I didn’t hesitate. I also, as I’ve already shared, didn’t learn much German. I figured I’d pick it up onsite.
Hence my one-way printed ticket, and the bright red letters – ZURICH – on the marquee above the boarding gate that suddenly made what I was doing real. I got on the plane.
Landing in Switzerland for the First Time
That classic Swiss soupy fog. This and the rest of the photos are from my ancient and now-dormant Facebook account. I logged on to retrieve them!
When I landed after an overnight flight, it was morning in Zurich. Everything was enveloped in a thick, cold cloud; I didn’t see any runway before the plane was suddenly and abruptly hurtling across it. Neblig is the German word for foggy, I learned. I also learned that Chuchichäschtli is the Swiss German word for kitchen cabinet. This is what the swarm of kids repeated excitedly at me, dazed and disoriented just off the plane, by way of greeting. They were disappointed when I pronounced it back correctly – the gutteral “chhh” is similar to the same sounds in Hebrew and Yiddish, and as a Jew I’d grown up around both.
We went first to the school where I would work, about 40 minutes by car or train from the city in a small village. That’s when I actually saw Switzerland for the first time. I gasped and rushed up to a window as der Nebel cleared and revealed striking, snow capped peaks: schneebedeckte Berge rising steeply above a lush green valley floor speckled with iconic Chalet-style, steep roofed homes.
The view from the school.
I pointed and gawked, and adults and kids alike near me shrugged and smiled. It was, I quickly realized, normal to them.
The Loneliness of Living Abroad
The awe continued: reliable and sleek trains that could take me anywhere, my beautiful daily walk from the home I stayed in to work: the beautiful school upon the hill.
But quickly, too, the loneliness and sadness I tried to leave in the United States set in. It wasn’t worse than after my breakup, exactly. But it was different. I made one very good friend in Switzerland, but one good friend does not an entire day to day existence make. I found myself full of daily, small thoughts and experiences with few outlets.
My friend Diana, who also worked at the school, calling the kids in.
I wanted, truly, to share the view with another human. But I had started to realize, somewhat sadly, that my college boyfriend was not who I was destined to share it with. My own escape velocity and experiencing this new place on my own emboldened this new thread of life experience that had nothing to do with him. That made it feel like my own. He faded.
Learning to Travel and Make Decisions on My Own
I did a lot of walking and train-taking and hanging out in Zurich. I had a first generation iPod pre-loaded with music – I listened to Tom Petty, Tom Waits, and Regina Spektor. I started booking weekend getaways to other places: I flew to Amsterdam, took an overnight train to Barcelona, went north to Munich, and visited all over Switzerland. I did this all on my own, sometimes picking up temporary friends but often not speaking to anyone for hours or days.
I would sometimes feel elated and aching at the same time. When I visited my first Christmas Market and sipped from a styrofoam cup of Gluhwein while wandering the beautiful, cozy stalls, I was alone. One Sunday morning on a whim while in Zurich, I went into the biggest church I could find and sat up in the highest pew, taking in the amazing and all-encompassing organ music – I was awed, and also felt like I didn’t belong. Nights in my room were spent reading, often children’s books in German alongside my pocket dictionary. I wanted to announce and laugh about my progress with someone in the moment, but that had to wait until at least the next day while at the school. Usually, I forgot.
Christmas Market in Basel. PS – this was well before smart phones, so all of these were captured on a small camera. I uploaded them during the weekends to the school’s shared desktop computer.
Even at school, surrounded by people, the cultural divide felt stark. Swiss work ethic is essentially, if you’re doing a good job you won’t get fired. The American way is, gold star and verbal encouragement every step of the way. After weeks of doing a good job by way of not getting fired, one night I cleaned so many dishes I caused the school to run out of hot water. Chastised by my boss and the matron of the school overall, I ran into a bathroom and cried.
A few days later I found a small English section in the bookstore in Zurich and felt that I’d found an American embassy. It’s not that I was such a patriot suddenly, but I didn’t realize how wonderfully familiar it was to look around and see my own language on printed books. I paged through various books, lingering. Eventually I left the bookstore and went to find a coffee, or maybe a drink. It was always my choice, I’d wander in or out at will.
What Switzerland Taught Me About Being Alone
I stayed in Switzerland for seven months. At some point what started dawning on me was that I’d endured one night, then another, and then one solo day trip, and then multiple international trips on my own. More than endured: I liked making my own decisions. I liked the results of those decisions – enjoying the art museum, experiencing the church music, the magical Christmas market; gazing out the windows of many trains and scribbling in my journal. And, with no external sources to give me reinforcement and feedback at work, I had to support myself. I started fulfilling my tasks with more assurance and self-direction. This felt disorienting at first, but eventually it was freeing. Maybe I was an intern in a new country, but I had agency and autonomy. I had dignity.
A mirror-selfie with a painting I was working on. Yes, I schlepped my paints and brushes overseas!
I was me. I could be alone, and lonely. If this was the “worst” thing about not having found my life-person yet, it was truly not as terrible or ultimately as scary as I’d imagined. I enjoyed many aspects of being on my own. This would, I realized, make me more secure and grounded in myself when I did actually enter into a longer, and potentially lifelong relationship.
How to be lonely was (and is) both about moving through sadness but also enjoying those many moments when it feels good to be alone. I think about this now, when Wes heads off to work for his long-ish stints. It’s always a strange feeling to simultaneously miss him, feel lonely, and also enjoy spending time and making decisions by myself.
I thank my time in Switzerland, difficult though it was in so many ways, for the life skill.
A pic, toward the end of my time in Switzerland, of the funny American in the school’s kitchen learning to make Spaetzli, the delicious regional cheesy-pasta dish.