Two of three

            I think I’m finally safe to put into writing the news that I’m switching jobs.  Probably the people who read this already knew that, but, on the off chance the news hasn’t filtered out there – it takes a crazy long time in Europe to get contracts signed and then finish up the old contract, so the job I accepted on September 1 I’ll only be starting on January 1 – there it is.  My days at dpa are numbered and I’m going to be an energy reporter/editor/translator with a Norwegian outfit called Montel starting in a few weeks, but here in Berlin.

            Of course, this blog isn’t for updates on my professional status.  The reason I bring it up here is because, as usual, I find myself facing the prospect of meeting several new people – people who all seem incredibly friendly, I must add – and figuring out if I need to share with them my status as the father of a dead child and, if so, how to do it.

            Now, on the one hand, it’s none of their business.  On the other hand “How many kids do you have” is such a classic icebreaker question, you just know it’s going to come up at some point.

            Which, of course, it has.

            You see, while we were in the midst of negotiating the contract, they told me they were having a big event in Düsseldorf towards the end of September.  I had a few days off, which I had planned to use for a hiking trip with some friends, but that fell through and the dates lined up perfectly, so I cleared it with Christina and then hopped a train to Düsseldorf.  Just as an aside, it was a one-day seminar on energy issues and my advice after listening to all the analysts talk about how what’s going on on energy markets right now is unprecedented, my advice to everyone living in Europe is to go out and buy as many extra sweaters and blankets as you can afford.  Do it right now, if you enjoy being warm.

            But I digress.  Knowing that I was going into a room of near strangers and dreading the number of children question, I had gone in with a prepared answer.  If someone asked, my answer was going to be “I have three children, but only two are with me.”  It’s honest and, I figured, sounded enough like a divorce/child custody battle that no one would want to open up the can of worms and pry further.

            However, during the lunch break, I started talking with several people about the process of claiming second citizenship.  Wanting to make the point that it seems to be getting tougher, I noted that how, as an American having children in Germany, I’ve seen the rules tighten with each child.  When we claimed Emma’s US citizenship, they essentially checked my passport and then gave her one.  When Noah’s turn came, they didn’t do a lot more checking, but did caution me that, should Noah ever have children and want to pass citizenship on to them, he’d need to be able to prove that he had spent five years of his life in the States, which is why I keep the proof of his one trip to the States as a 2-year-old in his permanent file.  Three weeks down, Noah: Only 257 to go!

            And then, when Colin was born, the rules got really tough.  The people at the consulate not only wanted to see my passport, but needed proof that I had lived at least five years in the States.  As luck would have it, I had read the warnings about this online before driving to the consulate and had shown up with work reviews from my time living in DC, which made them happy and got Colin his citizenship.  And that’s why we hoard our personal papers, people.

            So, I told the story and that was that.  The seminar finished up.  Drinks were produced.  I signed my contract.  And then most of the attendees got on a boat and took a cruise, with more alcohol.

            At some point, I ended up sitting with the guy who will be my boss, I think (I haven’t fully sorted out the organizational structure yet), and he said something along the lines of “So, you’ve got three kids then, right?” because he’d been there when I told the citizenship story.  Being just drunk enough not to think it through, but sober enough to remember my plan, I defaulted to “I have three, but only two with me.”  But he was with it enough to think “that’s a strange answer.”

            And let me tell you, it’s far from the worst experience of my life, but it is a bummer being mildly drunk with your future boss on a boat and having to say “Look, this isn’t how I wanted to tell you, but…”

            I don’t know why I make this so hard.  It seems like I should just say nothing or I should let it all out.  But I’m not the kind of person to wear his life on his sleeve (says me, as I blog), but I know that if I say nothing, the truth will sneak out there.  And I’m not sure what there is to do with that truth.  On the one hand, it’s not a big deal if they know.  But, on the other hand, I don’t want to be seen as weaponizing my personal trauma.  Maybe I’m paranoid, but if I look at it from the other side, I could see it as an attempt to get sympathy points, to make sure people are nicer to me, to make sure I get a slightly easier ride during my training period, to make sure no one even thinks about not letting me finish my probation period.

            And I’m probably having thoughts like that because I’m going to a service with a financial bent and the last time I worked at a financial news wire, it really didn’t go well.  But that’s a different situation and I also now have 15 years of wire service experience behind me, which would have been really useful at that last job.  But it haunts me.  I also started that financial service job just as the housing crisis started, and not a single analyst could tell me what was going on.  I’m starting this new job at the outset of an energy crisis, and a lot of experts seem confused again.  The parallels aren’t perfect, but it makes me nervous.  And it makes me think that the last thing I need is to muff a job like this.  And I don’t want my experience of losing a child to get all mixed up in it.

            But it’s part of me.  So it will get mixed in.  And every day is going to be a sense of feeling my way.  One of my new bosses seems to have just had a child.  I’m going to have to figure out a way of saying “Oh congratulations” without also throwing in a “you know, children die too” vibe.  I mean, I wouldn’t do that.  But, you almost feel like a walking reminder of how unfair the universe is sometimes.

            There’s no point to any of this.  It’s just a ramble.  But these are the things I think about and, as always, maybe typing them out will help me not think about them quite so much.  We’ll see.  In the meantime, I’ll be figuring out how much I plan to share on Day 1 of the new job, on January 2.