Working Things Out

I have to say, the last time I blogged, it actually felt very therapeutic.  For anyone who is going through a rough time or two, I recommend getting out your thoughts on paper, or in a word document—just put them in words.  It helps make sense of everything.  Not only that, but it helps make things feel more manageable.  Blogging isn’t a very private form of thought-purging, but sometimes it feels good to throw thoughts into the abyss.  Even if I’m only connecting with a few people through these posts, it’s still nice to have that connection. Not to mention, it is also refreshing to be “real”—with yourself, and with others. 
Anyway, let me dig in to the heart of this post by offering a little epilogue from my previous post...

It’s not easy to get out of a slump.  Throughout the tough times of this transition I have needed to be patient with myself and with the situation.  Even when I knew what changes needed to take place, I could not expect change to happen overnight. 

I guess I could put it this way:

 18. Recognizing what changes need to be made in your life is a great start to putting yourself onthe right track.  Following through with the goals and expectations you set for yourself, no doubt, is the more difficult (and often the more drawn-out), second part of this deal.   

At the Husker Bar. 
Our home-away from home.

But, I went for it...and, slowly but surely, I began to feel life start to fall into place around me.  As advised by my Mom, I set a schedule for myself during the day, and I made it a point to get out—even if that meant just heading to the library, to a local coffee shop, or to one of the numerous farmer’s market scenes.  I kept an eye out for any kind of inexpensive public event or attraction that was worth going to, and Aaron and I both began searching for outlets that would help us feel somewhat rooted in the community.  We found ourselves routinely spending a portion of our fall Saturdays amongst a rowdy pocket of red in Cambridge at Boston’s one and only Husker bar, while Sunday mornings eventually became our church-shopping time.  And, finally, after a dry spell of not hearing back from employers and receiving rejection, all at once I began hearing back from employer after employer.  A good problem to have, I suppose...

Well, one thing led to another, and soon enough I found myself employed in Boston, MA.  After rolling around several options I settled with the substitute-teaching/coffee-shop route.  It seemed like a great way to ease into the local job scene, as well as become familiar with the people and culture of the area.

And it was an amazing phenomenon.  Once I started working, I immediately felt connected.  And more alive.  It’s not that I’m one of those people who believe that our occupation makes up who we are.  But I do believe in the power of human connection, and the burning desire that many of us have to serve others and uncover our purpose in this world. 

Of course,

19. Entering the job scene in a new place means adjusting to a whole new culture.

Before I was employed in Boston, I was just an outsider looking in to a bubble and visiting occasionally.  Now I was an outsider attempting to live, breathe, function, and adjust to life inside this bubble.  And not only did I have one scene to adjust to; I had two...two completely different scenes, in fact.  There was the fast-paced, vibrant, and colorful scene at the coffee shop that came with a lot of quick-witted, back-and-forth banter, as well as memorization of sandwich orders, customer’s names/personalities, and routine procedures.  And there was the more steady-paced (with the occasional chaotic moment) classroom scene that linked me to a handful of Boston’s quirky, hilarious, hormonal, diverse, chatty, intelligent, stubborn, determined, unique, creative…youthful individuals.  Both have come with challenges. 

Biggest challenge of the coffee shop: The fast pace that all of the tasks require. 

Once you see all of the cogs at work behind the scenes, it is evident that a pretty amazing thing has grown from the seeds the owners planted five years ago or so when they opened this little coffee shop.  With that being said, it takes every cog doing their part and moving at the appropriate speed to complete the tasks at hand.  For instance, a lot is done by hand every day.  Basil is plucked, lemons are squeezed, meat and cheese are sliced, portioned, and bundled.  At a lot of other places basil would come in a spice container, lemon-juice would be bought, and turkey would come pre-sliced in a package.  But to this particular coffee shop, the quality and the source of the food is much more important than convenience, and in order to maintain this, they need every cog pulling his or her weight.  Not to mention, as a newbie from another part of the country I’ve also had to adjust to the Bostonian dynamic that can only be summed up with two words that are often articulated by customers in a hurry, or who just don’t want to say more to you than this: “Laage [large] daak [dark roast coffee]”.

Biggest challenge of substituting: Adjusting to the climate of each school and each classroom on the spot.  Sometimes I don’t have more than an hour and a half to prepare for my day of subbing.  This can be a thrill, but it can also be a little unnerving—especially since I’m uncovering the ins and outs of a completely new (to me ) district located in a completely new state, located in a completely new area of the country.  Never mind that I’m generally placed in a completely new classroom every time. 

Whew.  It’s definitely been a lot to adjust to.

But of course Aaron has been there through it all, juggling and adjusting right along beside me, and lending a stable shoulder, hand, arm or elbow when things get a little shaky.  It has been wonderful having each other there for balance and stability as we both figure out how to walk on our own two feet in this place.

Stay tuned for tales of fire-fighting and mountain climbing...

My Hiatus

Alright.  Time for a heart-to-heart.  Why am I just now publishing a post from December (which, truthfully, was slowly plunked out between October and December)?  And, while we’re at it, what was the deal with this long blogging hiatus??

Okay, reason:

Those several months that I stopped blogging?  They were tough…and it’s not quite as fun sharing the tough stuff.  It’s easy to share the adventures, the mishaps, the joys and excitement...  Admitting that times are tough?  Well, that’s tough in itself.  What made them tough??  Let me fill you in…

15. Transitions aren’t easy.   

Maybe they are easier for some people over others, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s this: Even the most spontaneous and transient individuals struggle with change.  Honestly, I think it is part of the human condition.  I mean, I love adventures; I enjoy tackling new challenges—but through every transition in my life, it seems there is a little bit of a turbulent period in there somewhere.  And until the next transition point, I always seem to forget this about myself…Why??   

So, in the very beginning of this adventure, things were kind of one exciting blur.  But once we began to settle in to this life in Boston, several real truths confronted me head on:

a.)    I did not have a job 

This lasted for around two months.  Looking back, this doesn’t seem like a very long stint of time—but let me tell you, it was long enough for me. Of course Aaron spent his days at work, which meant, for about two months, I spent my days alone. In the beginning, this felt great.  I mean, WHAT a deal!  I had the freedom (and time) to do whatever I wanted in this new city...So I spent a good majority of my days job searching, fixing up the apartment, studying for my MTEL exams (for MA teaching licensure), and doing some exploring. But as time passed, job searching became fairly discouraging, the apartment reached a fairly fixed up stage--and let’s just say, with slim-to-none social contact during the day, I began to feel pretty lonely.  And this really started to wear on me—which I actually had a hard time reckoning with.  ‘Why can’t I just enjoy this period of freedom?’ I reprimanded myself.  ‘Do I really need a job to feel happy…to feel like I have purpose??’  What I didn’t realize at the time was this: It wasn’t necessarily the lack of a job that was really leaving me feeling empty.  It was the lack of community.  The fact of the matter was 

b.)    We knew VERY FEW people here. 

Throughout this period, this truth kept hitting me like a ton of bricks.  I think the scariest part was, if we didn’t put forth an effort, we would continue to know very few people here.  Turns out this whole “finding a niche”-in-a-new place thing is a lot harder—and a lot slower of a process— than ever imagined.  I was forced to revisit the scary question of my freshman year in college, that stark question that accompanies “starting over” scenarios: ‘How do I make friends, again?’  Not an easy question for people who have recently left stable, familiar, broken-in, friend-and family-saturated environments.  In college you are surrounded by people your own age and are practically forced to see them day in and day out through classes, events, sports…Reality check: That doesn’t happen in the outside world.  You really have to work to meet people.

I knew the first step was just getting out into the community.  The problem was, I was losing my motivation—my motivation to job search, to meet people, to get to know the area.  Some days it was a struggle to even get myself out of the house—even though that was what I needed most.  And the kicker: I was angry with myself for being in this slump.  Nothing like being in a slump and beating yourself up for it... 
 
All of this hadn’t really bothered me before, I mean, Aaron and I had each other—wasn’t that enough?  At least for now while we were getting settled??  Don’t get me wrong, I always enjoyed my night and weekend time with Aaron—but, after a while, I began to dread the point when he would leave for work and I was left to face the day alone.  Once this began having an effect on my day-to-day emotions, I knew something needed to change. 

First change:  I needed to take control of those reins of life—instead of letting them control me.  I held the key to my own happiness.
Second?  Have confidence.  I could do this.  I was capable.  I had a lot to offer Boston—so WATCH OUT blunt, bean-eating people.  HERE I COME!!!
Third: Recognize that I was not alone.  There were others out there who had been unemployed way longer than I had been—and some of them trying to feed a family.  There were others out there trying to carve niches for themselves in a brand new place just like I was.  And even if I didn’t have a close network of friends surrounding me in Boston, there were all sorts of people around the United States—and beyond—who cared about me, and who were willing to offer me advice and support.  And of course I had Aaron by my side.  We were jumping into this crazy thing together.
Fourth: Take note of all of the wonderful things that surround me in my life.  For one thing, I had an amazing fresh start at my finger tips.  The possibilities were endless!
Fifth: Stop punishing myself for feeling down.  It was okay for me to feel sad sometimes.  It was okay for me to miss my friends.  This was a natural part of the transition.  Ironically, I think allowing myself the occasional sadness increased my overall moral. 
But with that being said…
Sixth: Limit the amount of time I felt sorry for myself
One day when I was down-and-out, Aaron reminded me of a piece of advice offered in the book Tuesdays With Morrie. In this book, author Mitch Albom tells of moments spent with his friend Morrie in the final days of his life—a time in which Morrie beautifully shares life lessons learned throughout his days.  In one particular instance, Morrie tells Mitch he gives himself 15 minutes a day to feel sorry for himself—just enough time to realize that this act doesn’t do him a whole lot of good. 
Upon testing this out, I found that this made a lot more room for moving forward with my life.
Seventh: Utilize this time as an opportunity to grow
Though Aaron and I came to Boston together, we were still our own people with our own individual needs.  And even though we had each other, we both needed an “outside world” (a world outside our relationship) just as much as any other person.  In fact, I think one of the biggest conclusions that I have come to upon being out here is this:

16.  We are better able to grow in our relationships with others when we provide ourselves with outlets to grow as individuals


With all of these goals in mind, I forged ahead... 

And would you believe it?  When I started to look up, slowly but surely, so did life.

On that note, I leave you with this:

17. Dropping an oscillating fan into a full litter box leads to an exciting series of events.

The Lost Post

Upon reading this, keep in mind that I wrote it around December 14, 2011, but just never published.  Why?  I'll explain in the next post...

I know, I know…I’ve been gone for a while.  I’ll just say this: It’s amazing how quickly life can get ahead of you.  Good thing is, I’m back—and ready to share more lessons learned in Boston.

12.  Want an adventure in Boston?  Go to Target.

 

Let me explain:

Earlier in my blog I spoke of our first visit to Target not long after our arrival from Nebraska.  This was Target adventure #1.  Target adventure #2 happened soon after Aaron and I moved into our apartment.  Upon moving in, we soon realized that we needed storage and organizational devices…stat.  Target seemed to be the answer.  Since our initial Target visit had been in Braintree, and we were now living in Mission Hill, we needed to find one closer to the heart of the city (as well as one that was fairly accessible by public transportation, since Aaron’s car was wearing the doughnut at this point…).  Well, turns out there aren’t many Targets in Boston.  In fact, without a car, the closest one requires a subway line change, as well as about an 8-minute walk.  So just in travel alone, we found this to be about an 80 minute operation.  The good thing was, once we got there we realized, not only was there a Target in this shopping district, but there was also a Best Buy, a Bed Bath and Beyond, and a Home Depot.  Now, I am all for supporting the little guy, but it was really nice to stumble across an area where we could get things taken care of in one fell swoop.

       

Keep in mind, this particular Target visit took place at the beginning of the college school year.  And remember when I talked about how crazy it was when we moved in with all of the college kids?  Yeah…it was just about as crazy inside this Target.  Description: clothes strewn, kitchen items in places they shouldn’t be, shelves once full of home décor and organizational mechanisms--now empty.  At least the workers were having fun.  A snippet of a conversation we overheard between some coworkers:

Worker #1- “Hey man, what if you changed your name to G. Vanni.  Like a rapper name.  You know, like, G. Vanni….??”

Worker #2- “No man, then you might as well say my whole name, Giovanni”

Worker #1- “Or what about a hyphen in the middle: Gio-vanni…?  Or just Gio??”

Then there was the part when Aaron and I decided that we were super hungry and there was no way we were going to be able to wait to eat until we got home since it was already getting late…

I knew exactly what I wanted from the little Target food stand: a soft pretzel and a yogurt parfait.  Had my heart set on it, in fact…Well, Aaron went up to get our food while I watched our stuff.  Disappointedly, he came back empty handed.  He reported back that they had been out of just about everything in the kitchen.  In fact, the guy at the register had been so nonchalant about it all that Aaron actually had a hard time believing him at first.  But after the cashier even pulled out the pretzels from the display case to show him that they weren’t edible, Aaron was assured (apparently this cashier even told Aaron a story about how a new worker accidently sold a display pretzel to a customer, who ended up leaving a bite mark in the plastic display).  Bummer.  Guess it just wasn’t a soft pretzel and yogurt parfait kinda’ night… 

As we made the hike back to the subway station through a sketchy area with backpacks and shopping bags full home materials (after taking a wrong turn, I might add), I couldn’t help but add a tally to our list of crazy Bostonian experiences.

And this wasn’t the last of our wild trips to this shopping area.  Two others involved pouring rain, missing a bus, and drenching ourselves and our bags of stuff on the walk back to the subway station.

13. Sometimes the things that take the most time and effort are also the things that bring us together.

Aaron and I began to find joy in daily time-consuming tasks such as cooking and doing the dishes.  Now, keep in mind, in this apartment our dishwasher runs on man-power, and our kitchen/oven/fridge are pretty much “fun-sized”, so this whole process is far from convenient, and I can disclose with full honesty that every dish-washing experience has not been speckled with rainbows and bunny-fluff…Yet, there is something about working with another to complete a task in a small confined space under less than desirable conditions that leads to a sense of togetherness.  I could get into this topic farther in a discussion about how I think everybody would be better off if we all went back to churning butter and tending to our own gardens—but I may save that for a later post…

Doing dishes and cooking together basically became a time for us to decompress, vent, share about our     days, hold serious and non-serious conversations, goof around, and/or dance around our tiny kitchen together.  Not to mention, we have had a pretty great time experimenting with different recipes and ingredients.  Whether attempting a legendary heirloom family recipe or envisioning up our own dishes, we have produced some pretty knock-out meals (and some that aren’t so knock-out, but this is part of the learning process, right?).  Both of us dream of a day when people from near and far come to sample our famous food and drink items.  For now, through, we’re just working on getting through the dinner and dishes process in a timely manner (like, before 9pm), and not setting off the fire alarm in our entry-way.  In time, in time…     

14. Look up the hours of a laundry-mat before hiking the half mile with four bags of laundry in the rain

So…when we first moved in to our apartment the laundry-room that existed underneath our apartment complex could be described as an extremely musty and sketchy room that could serve a dual purpose as a dungeon.  Therefore, Aaron and I decided that it would be a good idea for us to search elsewhere for our laundry needs.  Luckily, a Laundromat happened to be located right down the street—or at least it seemed to be located right down the street from what we could remember.  Well, we had put off laundry to the point when we were getting pretty desperate (yes, I had just about used up my last-resort underwear…), when finally we just decided to “get ‘er done”.  Of course we made this decision at a less than ideal time…after dark, while it’s raining—but desperate times call for desperate measures.  We were goin for it.

I remember asking Aaron before we left our apartment with hands filled with heavy laundry bags, if the Laundromat was still open. “Oh yeah”, he had replied. 

Famous last words…

After trudging down the street (about an 800 meter stretch), lugging our full bags of dirty clothing items through the splattering rain, we finally arrived at our destination—only to have our hopes crashed to the ground with the words, “We’re closed”.  Since we had enjoyed the trip to the Laundromat so much, we got to do it all over again—with not a single piece of clean clothes to show for it.  You can bet Aaron was given a little grief for that one—though, I guess we both could have done better research…At least now we know: 8pm laundry deadline.