Tougher skin vs rose-colored glasses

Two years ago I started a google drive folder called Doodling with Words.  We'd taken a decision as a family to flip the script of our lives and move back to North America after fifteen years in Latvia.  There were lots of reasons for this decision and even as this sudden plot twist came with a deep sadness, we knew it was the next right step for our family.  

I make sense of my journey by doodling with words, so it's no surprise that there are currently 202 pages of thoughts pinned to paper (or more accurately - my computer screen) that have emerged through this transition.  Ask anyone who's known me right the way through: I am not the same person I was when I boarded that plane for Latvia.  I've felt an insistant nudge to noodle through the alchemy of this fifteen year slice of my life, and my writing has been instrumental in uncovering all the gems that life in Latvia gifted me.  

The doodles aren't neatly organized from arrival to departure rather they are tied to the intangible - senses and feelings - structured only by the frame that each collection of doodles is tied to the sentiments evoked by a song.  I attribute my openness for this unconventional mode of articulating my thoughts to my privilege in observing my eldest son's way of moving through life.  He's an avid reader but has never read a single book from start to finish.  Instead he hops around, leafing through the pages and reading passages that strike him as interesting.  By the time it's all said and done, he will have gotten through the book and have pieced together the events and main ideas through his own remarkable thought processes.  His brain's ADHD wiring has him zooming his attention in and out and all about at a remarkable pace, and this leads to an extraordinary non-linear approach to the way he creates meaning not only when reading but also through living.

Why am I sharing all of this?  Because it feels like the right time to begin letting some of my doodles out into the world.  The part of me that still prefers the linear worries that the bits and pieces shared won't always contain the complete context, but I've come to trust that the full story will unfold and piece itself together over time - for me and for all of us.

A huge theme for me has been learning to 'walk the tightrope' - that is holding the tension for two seemingly contradictory extremes simultaneously so that over time we become skilled at employing the right amount of each while navigating the paradox that is life.  

Following my thoughts about Joy Eyeballs, I now share how I first stepped onto the tightrope of 'tougher skin vs rose-colored glasses'... an excerpt from the collection of doodles I called 'Tougher Skin.' 

I arrived in Latvia on a roundtrip ticket, because it was cheaper than a one-way.

The arrival was strategic - the day before Valentine’s Day that year. Freshly divorced, I could think of no better way to spent the holiday than sitting and drinking a lot of wine together with one of my best friends. The first of many nights we did our part to boost sales in that small wine shop across the street.  It was a grand way to kick off the unexpected curve in my journey, boldly landing me on a new path halfway around the world.

With my friend at my side along with the many expats she introduced me to, all showing me the ropes, I felt well enough as I settled in. Although it was all new, I definitely didn’t feel lost.

It was a big moment when I got my own clunky Nokia phone with a local phone number. No voice mails here. Everyone uses sms messages. I was on a steep learning curve but loving it. It was a tremendously proud day when I ventured out to the post office on my own in order to buy a calling card. (Don’t ask about why the post office was the place to buy calling cards - to this very day you can also buy toilet paper, pantyhose and random household items, alongside postmarks and envelopes.) I hadn’t signed up for an international phone plan, and wanted to be able to call my family from my own phone every now and again. So the best option was a pre-paid international calling card. I navigated the organized chaos of lines at the post office. In truth there were no lines, and fifteen years ago there sure as heck was no system for taking a number to wait your turn, but nevertheless there was some distinctive pecking order for how one moved forward to get served. Somehow I flowed into one of the waves, worked my way to the front, securing my calling card. A true personal victory.

I made my way home, made myself some lunch and crawled onto my bed to work out how to access my pre-paid minutes. The timing was great, by the time I worked it out, I should be able to call back home at a respectable hour with the time change to let them know how well things were going. I pulled the calling card out of my bag, somewhat ceremoniously because when you’re in a new place doing new things, somehow the most mundane acts become a big deal. I flipped it over to peel back the packaging, and saw that it had been very craftily scotch taped back together again. Huh. That’s odd. I pulled out the calling card along with the sheet of directions and started reading. I punched buttons on my phone, then turned the card over to enter the pin number. That yucky unease that had been swirling through my body settled hard into my stomach. The black strip had already been scratched off, pin number revealed. A small flame of hope still flickered somewhere inside, screeching that humanity is good and just enter that pin number, it’ll be ok, you’ll see. But even as my trembling fingers managed to strike the proper numbers, I already heard the computerized voice confirming ‘You have ZERO minutes of calling time left.’ A few more rocks landed into the pile in my stomach when I realized they hadn’t even given me a receipt for the purchase. This had not been an oopsie. This was calculated.

Here’s the perspective that half of me was absolutely able to see even in that moment: I had lost only 10 Lats (approximately $15 USD). I would be able to sort out another avenue for calling home, both on that day and in the long term. Just because there are some crummy people out there doesn’t mean everyone is so. No big deal.

Here’s the half of me that went completely berserk and took over the situation: WTF?!!!! That purchase was made at a post office! That is a government institution! If I can’t trust this establishment, who the heck can I trust around here? Where have I landed, where is my beloved Latvia, all things and people good and wonderful? Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.... How in heaven’s name am I going to survive in this country?

As stubbornly as I’d been working to keep those puppies securely perched in place, my rose-colored glasses dropped away right then and there. And I cried, and cried, and cried. This came from a place far deeper, of course, than the calling card and the post office. Why, why, why must crappy things happen to good people? Why must husbands come out of closets? Why must entire countries and nationalities be crushed into submission by others? Why can’t we just get our happily ever afters?! We are just good people, trying to live our lives right.

My best friend came home some time later to find me still curled up on my bed, sobbing. The first words out of my mouth were, ‘Whatever I say or do, do not let me get on that return flight in two weeks.’ To this day I have no idea where I mustered up that kind of conviction. Must’ve been the forty year old me overstepping her bounds by letting her voice out, just for a moment, to keep me in place.

My friend sat with me. We talked. We hugged. The perspective slowly came back into balance. It was a calling card. I’d get another. And I’d keep going, one day at a time.

She gave me her phone. I talked to my parents. They listened well, as they always do. My dad, who’s always had this amazing knack of tackling everything with a level head and a very practical solution, said to me, ‘You’re just going to have to grow a tougher skin.’ What?! Where was my practical solution? Was he saying that maybe not everything can be fixed just like that? Did he just tell me, his little girl, that the thing to do now was grow tougher skin? Holy cow. This was certainly not Kansas anymore. As much as I felt I must be dreaming and would be waking up at any moment now, I knew I’d crossed some bridge and there was no going back. Not only *could* I grow a tougher skin, here in this strange uncharted territory, but I most assuredly WOULD do it. Permission had been granted, and the challenge had been accepted.

As though the universe knew I was ready to start stepping out but not quite alone yet, my mentor for this hurdle came in the form of a very particular character. A Tunisian, a flamboyant French teacher, friend and colleague to my best friend and soon enough to me as well. He’d spent a few years in Latvia already and was further down his journey of this love-hate relationship. This country is nothing if not the extremes. All gray lives in the skies through most of the winter months, but never in the happenings down on the ground. Life here truly is spectacular on one end of the spectrum or the other. While blogging I described this as: ‘Somehow days here always seem a little sunnier and a little rainier than elsewhere, but that leads to a lot of rainbows (literally and figuratively)!’ I still stand by it. You are madly in love with it or it has you bubbling with a passionate grumpiness, but lukewarm is so rare here and that kind of environment is ripe for growing. (Or withering, you choose.)

So I’d cried with my friend, I’d talked with my parents, and was feeling a bit more even-keeled, when in walks our friend with his slight frame and larger-than-life personality. When he heard the calling card story, he erupted. Like mine, his volcano had very little to do with the calling card, and everything to do with being fed up with good people paying the price for someone else’s crappiness. That’s it, he says! We are going to the post office tomorrow and demanding a new calling card for you!

And we did. And we were denied a new card because we had no receipt. And we demanded to speak to the manager. And there wasn’t anyone available to talk to us. The walk home was filled with commiseration and that was good enough. Sometimes you don’t need things fixed, so much as someone beside you who genuinely understands.

That night I installed Skype on my computer for speaking to my family. Fifteen years later, I still don’t have an international phone plan and sure haven’t even entertained the idea of anymore pre-paid calling cards. Sometimes growing thicker skin means you stand up for your peace and sanity by letting it go and figuring out another way. Resourcefulness. There is always, always another way.

Growing tougher skin was the hardest and best advice I could’ve received that day. More importantly, I decided even as I was going to work on growing my tougher skin, I wasn’t giving away my rose-colored glasses. I sensed I was only going to make it through life’s jungles with both.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these sunken eyes and learn to see

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly

Into the light of a dark black night