Lamborghin"ME", Why Don't You?

Other than the sand and the heat, life in the ME can often seem quite like life in Canada. 

But once in a while, you get these reminders of exactly how different things are.  

​From this ....

Smilin' Vic recently told me that ​the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were retiring the Crown Victoria ... don't quote me on this, but I think the RCMP have been popping into Tim Horton's in Crown Vic's since the 70's or 80's.  It truly seems like the end of an era.

But Smilin' Vic said that the RCMP's new ride, the "Inceptor" (cue 'dom dom DOM'), was a mean beast, and would outshine the Crown Vic by far.

to this ....

I was impressed.  ​Super cool AWD mean machines meant to brave the harshest Canadian weather and deepest potholes in the RCMP's quest to eradicate crime for once and for all.  Real bad-ass police wheels.  Canadian cops rock!

While far, far away, in another universe ....

Lamborghin"ME", Why Don't You?​  (Doha, Gulf Times, Saturday, April 13, 2013)

All of a sudden, the RCMP's wheels don't seem quite so fierce?​

​Why does Canada's new cop ride suddenly look more like this?

A New Me, or Just the Me I Was Meant to Be?

Those of you who have laboriously waded through the treacle of my desperation by way of my early posts will know that professional disillusionment initially motivated my foray into 'BlogWorld'.

Isn't it odd that my disenchantment has metamorphosed into hope in the space of just a few short months?  

Or was it, perhaps, simply meant to be?

I feel like a new person; like I've been reborn.  

A decision I'd wrestled with for years seemed to make itself.  I quit my job.  Simple as that.  No more trying to avoid the reality that was staring me in the face.  I wasn't happy at work.  And it was making me unhappy in general.

Of course, over the last few months, I've questioned my decision to quit.  I've wondered whether I was simply using my job as a scapegoat for my unhappiness.  Wondered if I had really considered all the repercussions of quitting.  And ultimately I've come to the conclusion that the decision is without a shadow of a doubt the right one.

Tomorrow is my ​last day of work.  And while I will be sad to say goodbye to a good many friends made along the way, I feel, way down deep inside, like this is exactly where I am meant to be at this moment in time.

I must admit to feeling somewhat nostalgic these past few days.  It's made me look back on my life.  It got me to thinking about where exactly this decision fit into my "10-year Plan".  I started thinking back 10 years.

Which is when it hit me.  ​

It's ten years ago that I made another monumental decision to quit.  I found myself separated, on my own for the first time ever.  And I remember waking up that first morning, alone in bed, in the foreign surroundings of my first 'on-my-own' apartment, thinking "This is exactly where I am meant to be."  

I will never, ever forget the liberation of that feeling at that moment.​

On that morning, I had a great job, promising career, I was upwardly mobile, I was gloriously single with no desire to be anything but.  I had a car, I could go where I wanted.  I had a wonderfully quaint apartment.  I didn't have much in the bank, but I didn't have much debt.

But my plans for the future on that day had nothing to do with a job, a car, money or relationships.

My 10-year Plan that morning was to harness that incredible feeling of freedom, of happiness.  To make sure I never ​forgot what it felt like again.  

And it worked.  I didn't plan to ever get remarried, yet my path collided with Smilin' Vic's.  I didn't plan (like really, REALLY didn't plan) to get pregnant, yet I was blessed with the most amazing kiddo ever.  I just committed to letting the happiness in, and the rest followed.

But somewhere along the way, I forgot the feeling.  I forgot my commitment.  I let one small professional disappointment in.  It was quickly followed by another.  And it brought two friends, and they brought to friends, .... you know how it goes.  After a while, I tried to convince myself that the disappointment and the frustration was ok.  

I've spent a lot of time letting the happiness back in over the last few months.  Blogging has forced me to focus on the positive in my life: my family, my friends, my general lot.  I had to start dwelling on the positive or else I'd forever be known as the ​frustrated blogger.  I didn't want every post to be a rant.  I wanted to feel inspired again.

And somehow the memory of that happiness from ten years ago started fighting its way back to the fore.  ​Some days I really do feel like it's a new me.

But it's not.  It's just me.  The me I was meant to be.​

​Souq Waqif.  October 2012.  Sometimes you just know things aren't quite as they should be...

Gloom-me Days ...

​I have blogger's block today.  Maybe a heavy heart makes for an empty brain.  

​Barcelona, Spain.  June 2012.  

I'm overwhelmed by today's news and events.  There are days like that.  Days where you really wonder what it's all about.  Days where you really wish the madness would stop.  Days where it just doesn't make any sense.  

Bomb blasts at the Boston Marathon.  More carnage in Syria.  Another earthquake in Iran.  ​

Families in mourning, pent-up anger, senseless deaths; across the globe, powerlessness in the face of Mother Nature and Earth's inhabitants.

I wanted to write, I really did.  But words fail me.​

It's a gloom-me ​day.

I Failed Me a Little Today ...

Every day, I'm confronted with something I've failed at.  My days are filled with mistakes and failures of varying degrees.  Some days it's something small, like failing to remember to put the water bottles out for the water delivery truck on Wednesday.  Some days it's something big, like failing to read the e-mail from kiddo's teacher reminding me that today is "Crazy Hair Day" at school.  And some days it's something monumental, like failing at my job.

But one thing ​I've learned from failure is that 9 times out of 10 it teaches me something.  I like to believe I've actually grown from my failures, that I've become a little bit better at some things.  It might be that I've only become more accomplished at failure itself, but I'll take any success I can get.  Surely my failures have made me somewhat smarter than I once was?

For example, I once ran freely through my mom's yard wearing jelly shoes.  We had a huge Husky/German Shepard mix back then.  I failed to realize there was a chance I would collide with one of the doggy land mines littering the yard.  I realized my mistake as soon as the poo started seeping through the gaps in my jelly shoe.  I've learned not to run through open fields wearing jelly shoes.

I once rubbed my eyes after basting ribs in hot sauce with my bare hands.  I failed to heed the warning label that said "Avoid contact with eyes.  If product comes into contact with eyes, immediately flush liberally with fresh water."  Lesson in self-macing quickly learned.  Tabasco BURNS!

​I failed to wait until AFTER pulling a shirt over my head to apply lipstick ; I learned that you can remove a lipstick stain with hairspray.  

I failed at freely acknowledging a mistake; I've learned that you can avoid a lot of pain with a sincere "sorry".  

I failed at admitting that I didn't know what the hell someone was talking about; I've learned that you can avoid a lot of frustration by just admitting that you don't have all the answers.  

I failed at telling a lot of people exactly how I felt; I've learned that when you stop pretending, life becomes a lot simpler.

There are always exceptions; e.g.  ​I repeatedly fail to get to work on time.  That is the 1 time out of 10 that I just can't seem to learn from.  I figure I more than make up for it on the one hand, staying late on the job more than my turn.  However, this usually perpetuates the cycle of failure, with me arriving consistently three minutes behind the school bell most every day as I rush for after-school pickup.  On good days I convince myself that one could consider my tardiness a success if measured in terms of consistency.  

Then there are other failures, bigger failures, monumental failures, that make me rethink the implications of my actions on my life and that of others.

Yesterday I failed at sunscreen protocol.  Up until then, I could boast almost eight years of immaculate protection of kiddo's pearly-white skin in the ME.  I started off well, immersed Kiddo in spf 50 as is custom.  But then I let her swim and play in the desert sun for just a little too long without re-applying.  Her red shoulders and the pink hair part on her skull were the first indication that I had failed.  Her desperate attempt to rouse us at 1:00 a.m. by vomiting profusely over Smilin' Vic and I and our bedding was ​the second sign.  Her dry sunstroke heaves throughout the early morning hours lent credence to the epic proportions of my failure to protect this amazing little translucent being.  (I'm happy to report she's back to running about care-free as I type this post.)  I consider this a MONUMENTAL failure.  I am supposed to keep her safe.  Safe from the bad guys, safe from harm, safe from the elements.  Lesson learned: Failing my child is not an option. 

Recently, I admitted to failing at my job.  This hasn't been my biggest failure ever, but it's been a really hard one to admit to.  Me, who has always prided myself on my ability to 'get the job done'.  But I finally found a job I just wasn't willing to invest any more of me into.  So I quit.  In case I forget how massive a failure this one is, kiddo has been running around telling everyone for the last few weeks "My Maman quit her job!'  Funny thing is, I feel ok about it.  Lesson learned:  There is sometimes victory in failure.      

Years ago, I failed at marriage.  This one nearly killed me.  Slowly.  The failure dragged on for years, and it hurt - not only me, but many around me.  But then I succeeded at divorce.  Life has a way of throwing curve balls like that.  Lesson learned:  Sometimes success doesn't look quite like we expected it to.

For over six years, I have been failing my family back home.  As an expat, I just don't think there's any way around it.  I am not there to listen to them, to help them, to wrap my arms around them, to comfort them when they most need it.  Lesson learned:  Sometimes failure is the only option ... and it sucks.

Yup, every day I fail me a little.  But as they say in these parts, "What to do, yannih?"  I take the good with the bad and move on, and hopefully a little growth will come of it.  Hopefully the multitude of failures accumulated over the years will help define a successful lifetime.

May we all fail a little so that we may grow a little, and ultimately emerge triumphant.

"You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space." - Johnny Cash

Disconnected in the ME

Unreliability, fickleness, irregularity, variability, change .... These are all constants in the ME.  As such it should be no great surprise that the Internet ​stopped at our house last week for no apparent reason. Nor should it be any wonder that my inquiries as to the malfunction are met with confusion, dismay, distress ..... but no solution in sight.  After endless calls to the Internet provider, with an agent on the other end walking me endlessly through ISN variations (what does that even MEAN????) and getting me to force log-off 42 times, it was finally determined that I would need a technician on-site to resolve the problem.  

Now I am normally a patient woman; Smilin' Vic ​will attest to that as soon as I start to get the half-crazed look in my eye.  But waiting for the phone company to show up here is akin to waiting for the snow to melt in Northern New Brunswick.  You know it will happen, it should happen in April, but on a bad year it might not be til nearly June.

 So by the time the repairman gets here, the chances are he may well be greeted by a half-rabid, near-mad creature who used to go by the name 'Gypsy'.

Chances are by then I will have gnawed through the upgraded, higher bandwidth, super-performing, ultra-fast fibre-optic cable we had installed a few months ago. I will have done this not out of sheer frustration, but more because it was something to pass the time while I wait for my "lifeline" to be re-installed.​

You see, I rely on the Internet for phone calls back home, for e-mail, for all sources of social media.  When the Internet is down in the ME,  I am down.​  Granted, I can use mobile access for a few things, but it isn't the most convenient of affairs given that I am working from an iPhone, with a touchpad roughly the size of a credit card.

This week it has also wreaked havoc with my blogging, and I find myself increasingly frustrated with the inability to just sit down comfortably and post at random on a slew of topics of varying degrees of meaninglessness.  How dare faulty code or wiring disrupt my litany of rambling and babbling?

So I decided tonight that I would.not let this tiny bump in the road stop me.  ​That I would write about nothing, just to prove a point.  And as I sit here, four hours after beginning this post, typing with the help of a toothpick on this teeny tiny iPhone screen, I feel strangely, oddly, wonderfully vindicated.  

And a little bit foolish.  ​There's just no way to look cool poking at a phone for that long.

But for now, at least, I don't feel quite so disconnected in the ME.​