What’s life without the crazy? ~OEH

Posted on October 12, 2013 by rangotti

I went on a bike ride the other day with a friend. After being off the bike since July except for a couple of rides, I have lost all my base fitness that I had this spring so I am fat, slow, and can’t climb for anything. Tomorrow, I am leaving for Spain to ride with a bunch of men who either ride all the time or are professional cyclists. I am going to get my ass handed to me every day for 12 days. And I paid to do it. What to hell was I thinking?

After I finish cycling, I am spending the next 3 weeks going somewhere in Spain, but I am not sure where yet. I am basically just going to figure it out as I go. For the past two days, I have been trying to squish my clothes in a carry-on so I won’t have to check a bag, but my cycling gear takes up too much room. I have been a basket case of stress over it. I have 4 hours until my friend Marisa comes to pick me up to figure it out because I have to store the stuff that I am not taking with me. So basically, I am taking the two bags that I have been complaining about all summer and trying to cull it down to half the size of either one of them. And that will be all the gear and the clothes I have for 5 weeks in Spain. Yeah. I am pretty sure I have totally lost my mind. But, as my friend reminded me of recently, what is life without the crazy?

I like crazy. It makes people interesting. All of my friends are a touch crazy. If they weren’t, I wouldn’t hang around them. They have passion, take risks, fail and try again. They are open, vulnerable, and courageous. They care about the world around them and the people in it. When having a conversation about being 50 years old and trying to establish an identity apart from wife/mother/teacher, a friend asked me a profound question: Who do you want to be? My answer is: I want to be like them.

I want to be the person who rides her bike to work everyday, regardless of weather, because it is good for my mind, body and the environment. I want to be the badass skier who will ski through trees, down chutes, thigh deep in powder and laugh the whole time I am doing it. I want to be the person that can jump of a cliff with a paragliding wing and fly, sailing up with thermals, looking down in wonder on the world below. I want to be the person who will climb up a rock face and get stuck at a hard part and, instead of giving up, hang in the harness until I see the route and climb it. I want to be the person that isn’t afraid to push my body in physical performance. I want to be a woman who looks out a nature and never takes for granted the beauty I see all around me, regardless of where I am. And I want to be able to take a decent photograph someday.

I want to be the person who can sit and listen to another’s pain without trying to fix it, to just be present for people. I want to have a home where people can come, put their feet up, rest and feel at home and welcomed. It is funny, I cooked for Matt‘s roommates the other day. I haven’t cooked like that in a while. They invited their friends over, there was all this beautiful food sitting on the table, bottles of good Spanish wine, and amazing conversation. Eating and making food is such a social activity. Having lived by myself for so long now, eating by myself, I just appreciate those moments to feel part of a community, to listen to great conversation and ideas from creative and intelligent people, and to laugh.

So off I go to Spain. My hope is to push the boundaries of my physical performance cycling. Then to traipse around the country meeting people, hearing their stories, laughing, sharing tapas, and drinking some fine Spanish wine. And hopefully, in all of that, taking some beautiful photos.

There is no great lesson in this post. Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit”. What I am realizing through writing this is, regardless of checked bags or carry-on, all the things I am doing are consistent with the person I want be. In order to establish an identity, I have to do behaviors that actually are consistent with the talk. Who do I want to be? I am her.

“It is easier to live through someone else than to complete yourself. The freedom to lead and plan your own life is frightening if you have never faced it before. It is frightening when a woman finally realizes that there is no answer to the question ‘who am I’ except the voice inside herself.” ― Betty Friedan

Stop being a sissy-pants

Posted on October 7, 2013 by rangotti

“At times the world may seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe that there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough, and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey.” ~Lemony Snicket

Me & The Luddite

I love having older brothers. I am the youngest of seven siblings. I have 3 brothers and 3 sisters. My dad remarried when I was an older teen so I also have four lovely step-sisters but I don’t know them as well. Last week, my brother phoned me after his wife told him about my blog (my brother is a bit of a Luddite who eschews technology). He called to be supportive and his first attempt at that was to tell me to stop being a sissy-pants. When I started laughing, he clarified with “or I just wanted to call and make you laugh”.

I liked candles

My family has the best sense of humor ever. I can’t sit in a room with them and come out with my sides not aching from laughing so hard. And laughter really is the best medicine. I don’t know where I would be without them because through everything, I know my family is there for me. Those roots run deep. We have had our fights. My brothers burned my hair off when I was a little girl by making some concoction in the kitchen while they were babysitting and trying to get me to eat it by putting a candle in it. That didn’t end so well for me. My sister and I traded fisticuffs over the use of the bathroom in the morning before school. But no matter how angry we might get with each other, no matter how long we go without speaking to each other, I know that at any moment if I was in trouble and really needed them, they would be there for me, to pick me up and dust me off when I get knocked down.

Payback for calling me a sissy-pants. I could have posted a much much dorkier picture

After talking with my brother awhile, he reminded me that this sabbatical was an adventure and that there was no wrong way to do it. When I told him that one of the things I was really struggling with was having nowhere that was my own, that I was tired of packing and repacking a suitcase, of not having anywhere to just feel like myself, he again told me not to be a sissy-pants. He reminded me that the challenges were what made the best stories and they are also where the deep learning happens. He reminded me to focus on what I am learning instead of focusing only on what I am frustrated with and to write down those lessons.

I have been learning about the possessions that I truly miss and the ones that were superficial and I know I can live without once this sabbatical is over and I do have a house again. I have been learning about what is really important in life…people and experiences. And most importantly, I have been learning how to focus on myself and about what it really means to take care of myself since I don’t have a home to hide out in. I have to keep myself out in the world which means I can’t afford to slack off, I have do the things that I know keep me centered, it isn’t an option anymore. This is probably the most important lesson I have needed to learn for much of my life, how to take care of myself before taking care of everyone else. I think at the end of this year that is the biggest gift I will have from this experience.

Life now is really just me and a couple of bags of clothes. When talking to my brother that fact hit me, not as an esoteric concept but finally in full brutal reality. Realizing that all the other extraneous stuff of my life has been stripped away, it was one of those moments where I wanted to say “DOH, of course that would be hard”. Once I had that epiphany, it has been a whole lot easier to accept everything and to just flow with it. It has made it easier to accept of the circumstances in which I am living, which by my own admission was my choice, I don’t want to give anyone the idea that I am blaming anyone else. This was a choice and I haven’t been so sure it was the right one until now. I guess I have finally reached the point where I accept that I am on an adventure, not a vacation, and it isn’t supposed to be comfortable.

My favorite quote is by Theodore Roosevelt. It is the “Man in the Arena” quote:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Brene Brown, in an interview with Oprah, said there are two things you need to have to go into the arena. You need someone to be there to pick you up and dust you off when you get your butt kicked, because you will get your butt kicked. And the second thing is, you need absolute clarity of values. Because if you go into the arena and you value courage, then you can choose courage or you can choose comfort but you cannot have both. If you choose courage and you have conviction, even if you fail and get your butt kicked and get pushed to the ground in the arena, you will still know why you are there.

Family vacation

So today, I have both of those things. I have family and friends who I know will be there to pick me up and dust me off when I get kicked to the ground. And I have absolute clarity of values. I value courage over all other virtues. In six days, I leave to go cycling in Spain where I am sure I will get my butt kicked. Today I say: Bring it on.

PS: I have spent the days since my last blog doing pretty well, getting enough sleep, eating right, exercising, spending time with friends and I am feeling much better. Not perfect, but better. Centered and more like my typically exuberant self. Thanks everyone for all the kind words and support.

O Canada!

Posted on September 14, 2013 by rangotti

I have been back in the states for 48 hours, staying in my old neighborhood. It is funny, I have been stuck for so long and I had blamed it on my living situation, the debt, my job, my ex, and the exploitative therapist. It took going to the other side of the world to make me realize the “stuckness” was all me and the way I perceive all those things. It is quite a revelation. I came back totally appreciative of the gray, gloomy Seattle sky, clean water, access to services, and the care and compassion of my incredible friends.

So now I am heading to Canada for a couple of days of reflection, contemplation, hiking, and friendship. I need to process all that happened in the last month. The mountains of British Columbia are the perfect setting for doing that and for helping me to decide what to do with the next year of my life. I have the beginnings of a new sabbatical plan in my head (thanks Tony!!). My goal for my weekend is to sketch out a rough idea of the next 12 months.

Pictures and reassessment on Tuesday when I return. For now…O Canada!

A country with a soul

Posted on September 7, 2013 by rangotti

Today was one of those perfect Northern African days. It has been the rainy season here so it has rained every day. Not just Seattle drizzle rain, but a true soaking deluge kind of rain. Every…single…day. It makes the poorly built and incomplete roads into quagmires of mud, potholes, and huge puddles. The rainy season is coming to an end and the weather should begin to be perfect like it was today, mid 70 F and sunny with no humidity.

I was going to post earlier, but each time got my post finished, the power went out so I gave up and went for a walk in the village near my apartment with my friend Jen. What I love most about this place are the Ethiopian people. They show amazing resiliency, courage, and an absolute undefeatable spirit. This spirit is what helped them rout every attempt by Europeans to colonize them. They are a proud people and they love their country.

Every morning, I go running. Ethiopian runners are a source of national pride. The route I run takes me on a road where many people run each morning. Today I actually saw a group exercising in the median of the road. While I am running, the Ethiopians will cheer me on. They call out “good job”, like I am doing something great, when all I am doing is jogging for exercise. There is one part of my run that takes me parallel to a government housing project. Each day a little boy, maybe 10 years old, comes out and jogs with me down the road, grinning from ear to ear. He is adorable. He says good morning to me and then says “sport”. When he leaves me he said Ciao and I know I will see him tomorrow. You can tell he is proud of Ethiopia’s tradition of running.

Even on our walk to the village, the people smile and say hello or salam. The kids gather and walk with us, wanting us to take their picture. Women invite us for coffee. What I have realized from spending time with Ethiopians of all ages is that it is their culture to care about human beings. They take their time, they listen to you. They FEEL, they truly feel compassion with their hearts, and it isn’t just superficial bull. Ethiopia is a country with a soul.

PS. Between writing and posting, Ethiopia just won a soccer match against Central African Republic and for the first time, qualified for the World Cup. It is partying and chaos on the street. What a wonderful celebration of national pride.

These aren’t filtered yet, I haven’t had time to go through them, but they are the ones I took today http://sdrv.ms/19u2kms

The Mundane

Posted on September 4, 2013 by rangotti

Part of the field that they cut

I keep getting lots of questions about day to day life and I want to take a post to tell you what my life is like now. To give you an idea, while I was working on lesson plans in my apartment while the deluge of rain, thunder, and lightening was happening, I watched three Ethiopian men cut an entire field of grass around one of the buildings on campus with a sickle. It took several days. It is a big enough area that I would have wanted a riding lawn mower or tractor and it could have been done in an hour. The concept of time is just a different thing here than it is in the U.S.

Dryer controls

I live in a two bedroom apartment (see pictures below) that I share with an Ethiopian teacher, Dawit. It is pretty minimal by U.S. standards, but it is comparable to an apartment I had when I was in college. There are challenges here in construction standards. There are no OSHA regulations. You will see workers hundreds of feet up in the air on construction projects with scaffolding made from eucalyptus branches. They aren’t wearing harnesses or taking any safety measures. It is very dangerous. The building standards are also nonexistent. I have open wiring in my bathroom near the shower. And I had to laugh in the kitchen when, although there is space for the refrigerator, they neglected to put a power source so the refrigerator is in the living room where there is a plug. The kitchen has a cooktop and I have a convection microwave for baking but the directions for it are in Dutch so I stick with microwaving when I need to heat something up. The communal washer/dryer for the complex is also in Dutch so I just randomly push some buttons until it works and hope for the best.

Breakfast foods

When I get up in the morning, Dawit and I might go for a run or I might do some yoga. Running three miles at 8300 ft altitude is definitely good for my body and my lungs. After my workout, I stretch and then have some breakfast which usually consists of a hunk of bread with honey or peanut butter and a piece of fruit. When I need a pick-me-up, I switch to the Ethiopian version of Nutella in place of the honey or peanut butter. Lunch is noodles or rice with some vegetables. Dinner is whatever someone cooks which may be Ethiopian food or western food or we might go out to eat. We eat a lot of pasta. My favorite thing so far has been the shiro. The local beer and wine isn’t too bad either.

Abandoned horses

I have pretty much become a vegetarian. When you see the meat hanging in the shops, just out in the air with no refrigeration or sanitation, it is really hard to think about eating it. I see goat herders corralling goats for slaughter and I saw a group of pigs today rooting through the trash when I was out on my run. I think one of the things I am having the most difficulty with is the way animals are treated. When a farm animal has served its usefulness, they are abandoned on a street to starve. I have watched these horses that were left on a street just obediently stay there day after day and get skinnier each day. I know that one day, I will go by and one will be laying there dead. The worst part is that there are hundreds of abandoned animals such as that. I have seen them kill a rat at the produce stand where I was shopping and that same day, we walked by a dead human body on the side of the road. Ethiopia is 173rd out of 187 countries on the Human Development Index. There are lots of challenges here.

Dawit’s way of looking at life and his understanding of Ethiopian culture is helping me adjust. He reminds me a lot of Matt. Dawit is the chemistry and biology teacher and we work on lesson plans together. He was born in Ethiopia, then migrated to Ghana before being educated in the states but has now come back to Ethiopia to work. School starts next week. Dawit gave me the best compliment I have received in Ethiopia. When I offered him a rain jacket to wear, he told me I was very open with sharing my resources. I told him that it was just “stuff” and wasn’t important and that he was welcome to use anything of mine he needed. He told me I had an “African soul”. I thought that was pretty cool and I am getting a pulse on what that really means to be able to write a blog post about it someday.

I typed this out on my computer in my apartment so that I could go to the internet café and post it because our internet line was cut in one of the construction projects and the government hasn’t fixed it yet (it has been several weeks). Of course, I had to wait for the deluge of rain to stop before making the dash down the road. They keep telling me that the rainy season will end in 3 weeks… I don’t believe them.

Cheers to everyone and know that I am well. Following are my apartment pictures.

Apartment from outside. I live in a unit on the bottom floor

The Well of Strength

Posted on September 1, 2013 by rangotti

I have to admit I am struggling, more than I could have ever thought possible. We haven’t had power in 24 hours and I was sick for about 8 of those hours, I slept for over 12 of the rest. We haven’t had internet all week. I am so used to being connected to my family, it just feels like a huge loss not to have them there every day even just virtually.

Physical strength requires exercise. When we exercise, it can hurt or be difficult but it is what will make our muscles strong. I believe emotional strength and resilience is similar. It doesn’t get stronger when everything is perfect all the time. Emotional strength is gained through struggle. Somewhere, down deep inside myself, is a well of strength that I have cultivated over the last years that I need to draw on. When I was going through my divorce, that was my mantra: The pain I go through today will become the well of strength I will draw on tomorrow. I need to reach inside myself and draw on that well right now. I am made of sterner stuff than I am demonstrating.

I don’t remember ever crying as much as I have in the past week. I will not just turn tail and run away because things are a little challenging. I have to give it enough time. Usually, when I write this blog, I find the act of typing out whatever I am whining about helps me turn things around so that I can see the good side of the situation. I need that ability right now. June seems so far away.

So, what am I whining about? Lack of power, lack of internet connection, the inability to communicate, and just the enormity of being in this strange place where hyenas howl at night, roads are rivers of mud, and I have no sense of connection to anyone here. I am trying to build relationships at the same time as juggling the strangeness of the land and the environment. I just have to figure it out and get in a routine and it will be better. Having regular times for internet usage, routines for going to the store, etc all will help normalize things. Right now it is almost overwhelming with all the differences. Not almost, it IS overwhelming.

I wish I had a bike. Riding my bike would give me a way to find my center.

A Sense of Community

Posted on August 30, 2013 by rangotti

There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community. ~ M. Scott Peck

Village house

Ethiopia is not what I expected. The truth is, I am not sure that anyone could ever imagine what it is like until you experience it with your own senses. The sounds, the smells, the absolute essence of stepping back in time to the birthplace of humanity, none of that can be understood until you experience it. It is truly an amazing place.

The street near my school

Ethiopia is a contrasts in opposites. New, modern houses are built next to shanties. Horses, donkeys, goats, etc share the road with cars. Farmers growing teff to make injera and using wooden plows next to a modern university of stone and glass. Barefoot beggars share the street with men in Armani suits. People precariously cross the highway, dodging between buses, taxis and livestock. Beautiful new buildings are constructed with scaffolding made from eucalyptus branches. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to any of it. Some would call it chaos. I call it humanity.

Church on the hill

The sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of Ethiopia are like seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting time itself. It is the oldest culture in the world. Time is started at daylight, when the sun comes up, so dawn is 1 o’clock…a new day. Every morning at dawn, the monks from a nearby church greet the day with chanting and drums. I lay in bed and listen to the sounds as well as the oxen lowing in a nearby field. The smells of sewage are offset by the smell of freshly cut grass. The sour taste of injera, spicy wot, and the most amazing coffee I have ever had in my life make all my taste buds come alive.

Eucalyptus scaffolding

Having always traveled as a tourist, I am realizing that visiting in a foreign country is very different from living in one. It is strange and foreign land after spending my life in the sterile environment of the U.S., a place where everything seems so orderly by comparison. In the US, I turn on a faucet and have clean drinking water. I flick a switch and have dependable electricity. I pay a bill and have reliable internet access. I want groceries and supplies for my home, I can get it all at one store. Life is easy in the U.S.

Shanties

In Ethiopia, life is harder. The internet hasn’t worked in 3 weeks at my school (I came to am American hotel and had to pay $15 for a day of wifi), the power goes out on a daily basis, shopping requires several stops to different stores and paying the ferengi [foreigner] price, and then there are the daily difficulties of acquiring clean water. For me it is difficult but still easier than it is for most Ethiopians, because I have money and resources. For the average Ethiopian, it is much harder. To offset the hardships, people here depend on each other.

Modern housing

There is a sense of community, history, and belonging that I rarely see in the U.S. where we don’t need each other for basic survival. But in our isolation from each other, Americans also lose a sense of emotional connection that many (including myself) continually search for. Connection and community are two things go hand in hand. But to be connected, we have to be vulnerable to people. We have to open up and show others what we need and we have to meet those needs in other people in our community. For many of us, this kind of vulnerability is hard.

Brooklyn

Charlotte

So I begin this year of renewal and transformation. I am not convinced yet that I can do it, either the job I am being asked to do or just staying so long outside the U.S. I am already missing my family terribly. Spending the last week with Charlotte and Brooklyn has made me long for more time with them. I long for a sense of community of my own.

NOTE: I had a lot of trouble with pictures today. I forgot the cord to the camera that I had the majority of my photo on back at my apartment. So here is link to the ones I already uploaded to my drive. I will try to put the rest up later when I get back to an internet connection. http://sdrv.ms/1dxhsFh

Next stop…Africa

Posted on August 27, 2013 by rangotti

I was out running errands on Monday, planning on spending my last evening with my wonderful family, when I decided to check my flight times for the next day and lo and behold…I had the wrong day. Fortunately, I didn’t miss my flight but it sure got my adrenaline pumping to be leaving in 3 hours when I thought I still had 27 hours. Unfortunately, it made my goodbyes to my family much shorter. But maybe that was for the best. I tend to let things drag on otherwise.

I have no great words of wisdom this morning. Today is the day. When I wake up tomorrow morning, I will be in Africa. Although I am scared, my fear doesn’t own me. I know that anything that I have forgotten can be taken care of once I get there. I don’t know what to expect, I am probably the most unprepared traveler on the planet. For someone who has always been a planner, that should be freaking me out. But for whatever reason, it isn’t.

I will have some pictures of my new home on my next post. I am not sure when that will be, but I promise it will have pictures. Let the journey begin…

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. ~John Steinbeck

The Journey of 1000 miles…

Posted on August 26, 2013 by rangotti

Sometimes, I think life tests us. Every time I have had some kind of insecurity about this decision, life will throw some kind of obstacle in my way which I have been interpreting as “see you can’t do it”, but I think the question life is trying to get me to ask is “how important is it to you?”.

I leave tomorrow for Washington DC. Then fly out Wednesday morning for Africa. My big worry was my obscene amount of baggage and how I will negotiate it all around the Addis Ababa airport. I have 3 checked bags and a small carry on and backpack. I think I need to cut one bag out. That means either leave some of the clothes or some of the school supplies I wanted to bring.

That was my big worry, until the fire ants struck. Mean little beasties, fire ants are. For those who don’t know me, I am deathly allergic to fire ants. I was coming home from the store yesterday, in a hurry and not looking where I was going and stepped in a mound of fire ants. Fortunately, thanks to reacting quickly, I am fine except for a painful foot. It was an inconvenience but one that had me saying “you can’t even watch what you are doing in your own country, how are you going to go to another country, negotiate baggage, find your way around, figure out how to teach a class that doesn’t speak your language…etc etc”. The litany of “I can’ts” began.

So today, I have to purchase the last of my supplies. Spray my mosquito net with Permethrin, have lunch with a friend, repack and try to get rid of a suitcase full of clothes. Sometime in there, spend my last day with my son, daughter-in-law, and grandbabies. I really should have finished the packing thing earlier. There just hasn’t been time to get my stuff done and visit with everyone also.

So I am stressing and when I get anxious and start to panic, I start focusing on all that I can’t do rather than on what I can. Right now, it is full-blown panic time, so the “I can’ts” have possession of my otherwise positive attitude. I have to remember that it is one step at a time. I need to start with the first item on my list and go until I have finished the list. One step at a time. The journey of a 1000 miles begins with a single step. I just need to begin. I can figure the rest out as I go.

Deep breath Robin. Remember to breathe, stay present, and be aware. You can totally do this. I wish Matt was here.

It is all about perspective…

Posted on August 20, 2013 by rangotti

robin

One morning when I was newly single and still very emotionally fragile, I was walking in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood in search of breakfast early on a sunny Sunday morning. It was one of those rare mornings after a bad breakup that I was optimistic about being able to move on and carve a new life out for myself. A smile on my face, feeling confident, healthy and beautiful, curly red hair all askew, strolling down the street and all of a sudden, a man gave me the best spontaneous complement I have ever had. He said “top of the morning to you. Wow, the redder the hair, the hotter the woman.” It was unfortunate that he happened to be jumping out of a dumpster at the time and wearing a woman’s skirt and a pair of black pantyhose with a run in them, but hey, at that point in my life I was going to be thankful for a complement wherever I could get it. It is really just a matter of perspective.

I was reminded again this week that all my “realities” of life are a matter of perspective. The lens I am looking through, colored by my experiences, beliefs and emotion, distorts reality as I see it. Every single human being on the planet has a distorted view of their reality. It is only through communication that we can understand how others are seeing the same situation and realize the fallacies in our own perception of events. That is why communication is imperative in misunderstandings. If we refuse to communicate, we can never understand any but our own distorted reality of things.

Pure joy

My reality was distorted enough that I was having a pity party earlier this week. I am staying with my son and his wife, enjoying their company and the pure joy that radiates from my two beautiful granddaughters. Given that scenario, the true reality is, there is absolutely no reason I should have been feeling sorry for myself, but I was. My reality was colored by the fact that my son lives in my former home and every time I visit it brings back memories of my marriage. Added to the emotion of that was an unexpected visit from my ex, who is happily ensconced in a new relationship and I was just flooded with the “all that could have been, all that isn’t now” perspective instead of seeing the reality that is before me. After a virtual slap from my friend Jonathan, I decided enough was enough of that. I needed a big perspective shift to remind myself that my life is my own. I am not in competition with my ex. I am happy that he is doing well. That was the end of that whole line of thought. That was perspective shift #1.

My reality has also been distorted by not having a place to call my own or any personal space. It makes me cranky. Although I am an extroverted person, I need time to myself to recharge. This summer, even though I have had great friends to rely on that have taken me into their homes, having no space that is my own has played havoc with my whole emotional system. By emotional system, I am referring to more than just feelings. I am speaking of the hard-wired physiological, psychological and social mechanisms that human beings have evolved as a matter of survival within a family unit. Our emotional system includes the internal and external interactions and reactions associated with our basic human needs for food, water, sleep, shelter, territory, protection from harm, mating, and nurturing of young.

Living on the road and off the charity of others after a lifetime of having a home of my own, when I was always the person who others turned to for help, has definitely been a challenge for me. There have been many times that I didn’t think I was going to make it, that I was ready to go back to Seattle and start looking for an apartment. But with each challenge I have faced and overcome, I have grown emotionally stronger. I am learning to rely on people and to listen to my body’s needs and to convey those needs to others.

One of the hardest things I have ever done is to tell my children that I was going to get a hotel room this week. It has nothing to do with them and certainly nothing to do with my beautiful granddaughters. I would spend every possible minute with them. But I have realized that I have to take care of myself too or I won’t be any good to anyone. What I need right now, on this last week before I head to Africa, is some time to myself where I can go through my things once again and do a last packing. I need to have a place to spread out all my stuff and pack up the few things that I have with me that are staying in the States while organizing and purchasing enough supplies for my classroom and my personal life (shampoo, mosquito net, etc) that will last me until I get back to the States during the holidays. Unfortunately, I can’t do that with my beautiful children and grandchildren around because I love them so much I just want to focus on them when I am with them. I need a few days to focus on myself to get all those last minute things done.

So I have been stressing all week until I came clean and admitted to my children what I need. As I would expect from them, they are wonderful and they understand. Why did I ever think they wouldn’t? I really have the most amazing children ever. Telling them gave me the perspective shift that I don’t always have to fix everything for them, that I can rely on them to help me also. It made me realize that I can tell them about being scared and unsure of myself as I embark on this journey. I can tell them how much I am going to miss them and how worried I am to be leaving them.

The truth is I wonder if I have made the right choice and whether I have what it takes to do the job I am being asked to do. Do I have what it takes to live in a place that is so different from everything I have ever known? Am I a good enough teacher to teach math in a place where many of my students don’t speak English while I speak no Amharic? Will I have the courage to explore this new country I am going to or will I stay in the safety of the school area I will teach in?

My perspective right now is being colored by my fears and insecurities about where my life is heading in the next year. I need my family and friends to help me with that perspective shift, this week more than any other. The closer the time comes for leaving the more excited I get and at the same time, the more insecure I get. I think that is probably a very normal and human reaction. I just have to breathe, stay present, and be aware and remember to keep communicating to keep a good grasp on true reality not just the reality colored by my experiences and emotions. It really is a matter of perspective.

Life Divided by Zero

The Journey of Becoming Undefined

Tag Archives: travel