Bumpy Road

It’s hard for me to believe that it has been over a month since my last blog entry. A lot can happen in such a short period of time.

I have always been a relatively private person. I’m not one to share my feelings with many people or disclose much of my business on social media sites. Even on my blog, I’m careful not to put out more than I want people to know. However, I think it’s important that I share what has been going on with me over the past several weeks. Sometimes I forget that regardless of how positive I remain, I’m not exempt from feeling pain and disappointment.

My motto has typically been to make the most of my situations. Every day I wake up I tell myself that it is going to be a good day. I have my agenda, my projects, my tasks, and I set out to do those things with a smile. Then, somewhere around the end of June I started to get this feeling that didn’t sit well with me. My husband’s job causes him to work more hours now than he ever did before. I believe we spent more quality time together while living in the states than we do here in Africa. I distinctly put quality time in there because I don’t ever want to mistake simply being present as quality time spent together. They are two different things. Work can be pretty demanding, especially when it’s all new to you. Nonetheless, my husband is doing his thing and handling his business, so I fully support his work and the long hours, even if I don’t always like them. Plus, he always puts forth the effort to make time for us. But, the lengthy days spent by myself were starting to get the best of me. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was lonely.

In this country there are many restrictions on where we can travel. I don’t exactly have the freedom to walk out of my home, go off compound and walk around the city. It just doesn’t work like that. For one, it’s not too safe for me to wander the streets alone. Two, there are very few sidewalks, which means I would have to walk in the street battling very reckless drivers. Three, there are no stop lights at any of the intersections. So when I’m ready to cross a street or large intersection, I just have to do my best to maneuver in between moving cars going in several different directions.  It is definitely as unsafe as it sounds. This is one of the most dangerous cities when it comes to vehicular accidents. Lastly, there is not much to see when roaming about in Algiers.

When I go anywhere, including the grocery store, I have to arrange for a driver to take me because I am not allowed to drive in this country, not that I would want to anyway. Also, I’m not advised to go anywhere by myself, not that I would want to either in this particular city. So, the very few sights there are to see in Algiers, I must arrange to go with someone else. The pickings for company to join me are quite slim. Outside of Algiers, there are many sights that people said I would truly enjoy. However, because they are outside of the safe zones for us to travel we must arrange for police escorts to take us into those areas. A group trip is planned several times a year to give Americans the opportunity to travel outside of Algiers with an escort.  

Despite me having a great attitude regarding my location and following my motto, I’m only human. At some point I had to come face to face with the reality that I was feeling. I missed the interactions with friends and the freedom to travel about on my own every day. Certain close friends and family that said they would stay in touch, were now doing very little to maintain contact. Other spouses on the program have told me that during our time overseas my husband and I will learn who our close friends and family members are. I thought I had already figured that out. If there is one thing I know for sure, it’s that just because you’re family doesn’t mean you’re close.

I began to feel saddened by certain individuals. Everyone has their own life to lead; however, for any relationship to thrive you must put something into it. The cliché, “You get out of it what you put into it” can apply to numerous areas of life. I have “close” friends/family members who have never visited me in any state I lived in over the past 9 years. I find that I’m always using my vacation days, my pay check, or my time to see them, most often to their convenience. I think it really hit a hard point when these individuals recently went to visit other people in the same area that I just moved away from. It made me think, “Was I never good enough for them to use their vacation time or funds to visit me there over the past few years?” My husband and I even have “close” people in our lives that also never visited us where we lived and we were only 90 minutes away from them; however, we went to see them countless times. I’ve learned there is always an excuse or a reason that seems so justifiable when you’re trying to defend such behavior. Anyway, let me change my path, because I’m slowly going down a road that leads to a dead end.

Aside from feeling lonely, being disappointed in a few “close” family members and friends, I also became disappointed in my actions towards myself. I was no longer following through with the commitments I made to myself. Let’s just say I gradually fell off and lost focus. I refuse to come up with any excuse as to why I got off track. I simply made a bad choice by not doing the necessary work to get where I wanted to be.

Week after week, my mind fell deeper into a state of disappointment and discouragement. I soon became annoyed with myself for letting other people’s actions get under my skin emotionally and for watching myself lose the self-discipline I worked so hard to achieve. My attitude became unhealthy and certainly unproductive. I stopped exercising. I started eating more junk food and snacking on various items when I wasn’t hungry.  I gained about 10 pounds that felt more like 20. I stopped writing and I actually started watching television. I should say that I normally do not watch much TV; maybe a show or two per week, and that’s it for me. Sitting on the sofa getting lost in show after show was entirely out of my character. My body was getting weaker, probably due to the useless calories that I consumed. Most of all I was losing hope that anything would get better. I was a mess sporting a smile for others.

I do believe that certain situations can make one person more vulnerable to feeling hurt than others. I love hard. I care deeply. I know my abilities and potential. Therefore, when something goes astray in any of those areas of my life they hit me pretty hard because I have already invested so much of my being into them. I know my weakness and my strengths. I allowed my weakness to get the best of me.

Do I think it’s bad that I felt the way I felt? No, I don’t. I feel I’m human and I had a genuine reaction to what I was feeling inside. And so, instead of continuously trying to cover it up, I finally released those feelings, dealt with them, and now I don’t have to pretend like it doesn’t exist. Let me be clear what I mean by that. I don’t have to pretend that I love the situation I’m in or that I’m extremely happy with certain individuals in my life right now. Reality is the truth and I know that I can’t change the truth. I cannot change the actions of others, nor can I change the cards I was dealt. I can, however, control how I let those things and people affect my life and my attitude throughout life. Because I love hard and care deeply, I will always be there for those family members and friends anyway. I’d be lying to myself if I said I wouldn’t be. Because I know my abilities and my potential, I will not succumb to any of my own lazy efforts and give up on my goals or dreams. I’d be cheating myself if I did.

Everyone is entitled to their pity party, but I’ve never been one to let a pity party last for an extended period of time. At some point you just have to snap out of it and grab hold of your emotions or situation, and figure out how you are going to get through it, or make it work for you. I kept saying to myself, “Snap out of it, snap out of it!” Clearly that wasn’t working. I had to believe it and not just say it. A couple weeks ago I finally experienced the snap, the moment when your vision alters and your perspective changes. The moment when you put yourself back in the driver’s seat and realize that you control the speed. You’ll know it when you have it because it feels like you have control again.

Nothing has changed about my situation by any means. And nothing has changed about the people in my lives or their actions. But I’ve altered my attitude about them, about the situation. I will give no individual or no situation the power to allow myself to feel less than or defeated by its ways for an extended period of time.

I could have chosen to keep these depressing weeks to myself and resume writing my blog like normal. But the name of this blog is “Blue Heart Journey.” Simply said, it’s my journey. I am writing this blog for myself, my husband, my future child or children (even my niece and nephew), and then for all other readers. Therefore, I have to be honest with myself. I had to be true to my journey, which isn’t always fun and thrills. Since I’m only 30, I’m sure to hit many other bumpy roads in my life. I hope to look back at this entry and use it as a resource to aid me in getting through any tough or disappointing times I come across in the future. Sometimes our journey takes us on paths that we would rather not share with others, but there is power in pain if you can pull through it and help someone else overcome it too.

I have started a new project that may take me away from my blog more often than I would like, but it’s for good reason, I promise. :) I still plan to share my journey though. If I don’t write it down now, I’ll never be able to tell it as intimately later. There is so much power in the pen. :)