I was thinking today about how different I am here. One of my closest friends is coming to visit in July. We talk several times a week so things really haven’t changed much as far as communication. I’m looking forward to the visit to see how we’ve both changed in this last year: it’s going to give me a partial sneak peak when it comes to readjusting to life and friends back home. Reverse culture shock was something I learned firsthand when I came back from Germany the first time to an incredibly disappointing and traumatic senior year of high school. What I discovered, and what was ultimately the most difficult lesson I learned, was that life does in fact go on without you. At that time, my friends and I had changed so much that the differences became irreconcilable. This time around I’m far less naïve.
I’ve changed in personality. It’s hard to explain the stress of being here sometimes and the strange ways it manifests itself. I’ve had some moments where I’ve behaved poorly or snapped at people because of something totally unrelated to them. Although it might sound contradictory, this experience is teaching me to be more patient. I’m trying my best to understand other people and how they work and to try and be less rigid with them. Some days it takes a tremendous effort.
There’s also a certain amount of loneliness which is almost inevitable. Sometimes it’s not even enough to have friends and family here. For some of us, maybe we feel far from home. For most of us, I think it’s just that we are far from what is familiar. I might even call it desolation. People try to do their best with you but there’s still a sort of loneliness.
The biggest challenge here is keeping morale up: it’s a mental game. On an average day there are usually more setbacks than steps forward, and those are exactly the kind of things that grate on you after a while. So you try to keep your head above the water and do what you have to to weather the storms. Most of the time, you can’t count on anyone to save you. You realize that you have to deal with things on your own. Sometimes people have too much of their own things going on here, and to that end I’ve felt that I’ve been left hanging on a couple occasions. The only source of reliable strength I have comes from within, and I always have a choice in the way I react, behave and feel. In the end, I feel that I’m learning a lot of things about people and myself. Some things I don’t like. In some ways I feel that I’ve become weak. I feel like I put up with things that I would never put up with in the US. But I chalk a lot of that up to the overall mental experience of being here; they are qualities that I think will normalize once I’m in a more comfortable situation.
There have also been positive changes. I’ve been able to become more of a leader than I have been up until this point. I’ve taken more initiative and made more of an effort to be outgoing. And I think I’ve finally learned the value of not dressing like a dirtbag. Which brings me to the actual point of this entry.
Today I dressed up really nicely and had to laugh when I looked in the mirror. When I was little, my mom tried to enforce a dressing up policy, and I’d always find ways to undermine it. It began with ripping panty hose and, in middle school, I’d wear a skirt when I left the house but change into jeans before I got to school. As I looked in the mirror, I started laughing because I was thinking about all the comments my mom would have for me if she saw me dress in a skirt and a dress shirt with a yellow scarf draped around my shoulders. It was the perfect spring outfit and I felt like wearing it even after my classes were over.
Making use of the beautiful weather we’ve had here the last two weeks, I took a book and my notebook down to the beach. The season starts in less than two weeks and the hotels and restaurants are busy putting up their umbrellas and organizing the chaise lounges. In the meantime, the beach is vacant. I usually spend two hours reading every afternoon so I thought it would be nice to spend today on the sea.
With my iPod in hand, I got to the beach and took off my dress shoes. After navigating some dunes I began walking right on the water’s edge. The sand there is still kind of soft. I stood for awhile enjoying the hazy day and feeling the sand disappear beneath my feet as the water retreated back in on itself. I walked for a long time on the beach front, getting a little deeper into the water with every couple steps. On my way back home I was in well over my ankles, all the while wearing my skirt and carrying my shoes. And I got I got splashed pretty good when I wasn’t paying attention.
And that’s when I thought of my mom. And that’s when I felt that I needed to write this story.
My first best friend’s name was Ashley. I had known her since second grade and we remained friends until high school started and we went in completely different directions, as friends often do. Aside from The Sound of Music, we also went through a phase where we loved the Disney movie Pocahontas. I have since learned that it wasn’t historical accurate (?!). There was a point where, thanks to the wonders of Disney and capitalism, the both of us were buying Pocahontas action figures. I think there were six of them in all and each one cost five dollars. I was still in this phase when my parents and I took a vacation to Maine. In true Rhoads fashion, once I get fixated on something, I am stuck. I was fixated with completing my collection as soon as possible. It was all I could think about. I didn’t think about the figures I had, but the ones that remained out of reach.
Our vacation took us to Black Sand Beach at Acadia National Park. I remember that you had to go down a couple flights of stairs to gain access to the beach, one of what seemed like a zillion stops within the park. The three of us were walking along the beach. Although it was in the summer, we are talking about the northern Atlantic, and I remember the water was kind of cold. I remember I was wearing stovepipe jeans that had become the bane of my mother’s existence, since she had a daughter who never dressed like a girl unless she was forced. I think I was taunting my mom by going further and further into the water and looking back to see her reaction. It was then that she leveled a dare.
“Go into the water up to your knees,” she said, “and I’ll give you five dollars.” My mother was aware of my fixation, so the sum of money couldn’t have been mere coincidence or an arbitrary amount.
In my head, the wheels turned. What was there to lose? This was as close to a financial slam dunk as a middle schooler was going to get.
Now I don’t recall exactly what really happened. I’m sure I pulled up the stovepipe legs of my jeans, which were far larger than my actual legs. I’m sure I thought at least for a second before I went in. But something went wrong in the process. Maybe it was the fixation coming to get its revenge. Maybe it’s because I laughed at a bird eating a chicken McNugget that fell on the ground in a Wal*Mart parking lot earlier in the trip (which is still funny to me today). I don’t know. What ended up happening was a wave hitting me in the course of events. And soaking me well up to my waist.
I can still hear my mother’s laughter. I can still feel the weight of my jeans and the salt inside them. I remember getting in the truck wet and taking my normal, awkward sit in the middle, straddling the gearshift.
And today, as I walked on a beach thousands of miles away, years later, where if I would have said on the day I took the dare that I’d be living in Albania teaching English for two years and none of us would never have believed it, I was transported back to that day… the day where I won five dollars on a bet. And my mother spent the most entertaining five dollars of her life.
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