Tag Archives: change

Killing Spiders and Other Bad Metaphors for Change

Posted on by
5
Pin it

Eight days of solid work. For a startup tech conference – the largest ever – midVenturesLAUNCH – working with guys so impressive, it’s spurred me to continue to take risks with my life and to strive for more.

But also, working in Chicago, it hit me.

How the hell did I end up here?

Not because I don’t like it or I am not enjoying myself – au contraire! I love it here. It has everything one could want in a city – arts, entertainment, crazy taxi cabs, nightlife, hustle and bustle and the extreme focus and drive that it takes to survive in one. But it also has – waterfront, weather (something I missed living in LA and something I got a bit too much of in England) and nice people, beautiful neighborhoods, an international community, big deciduous trees, a subway and nice people.

The thing is – I just can’t figure it out. I can’t pigeon hole this city.

I stop, I look around, I talk to the people in it. It’s so normal, but then again, not.

And it’s in the Midwest.

I go back to my original question. How did I get here?

I can’t explain it more than that – that question has been plaguing me for the past two weeks – in a good way. Like a plague full of skittles and smiles and Modern Family tv shows.

Jock thinks it’s because I can’t fit Chicago into a neat box. Moi? Trying to compartmentalize?? Never!

Then I remember what change is like – finding a spider in your apartment. First step – coming face to face with a disgusting, 8-legged creature building a nasty, invisible web in the corner of your window. You realize it’s tiny, so much smaller than you. You smile because it doesn’t even know what’s coming to it.  You feel good about yourself for recognizing how vulnerable and small it is and how much power you wield. This sucker ain’t got nothing on you.

Then – it moves. You scream and jump onto the first safe thing you can find – something familiar and up high. You underestimated its danger. You misjudged your own feelings and capabilities. There is no way in hell you can fight this vicious creature.

The spider pauses for a moment, still poised on all eight legs, ready to attack – but it gives you a moment to recollect yourself. Out of the corner of your eye, you see that this room is filled with your own stuff, your own weapons, weapons that you have been hoarding and storing your entire life – perfect weapons that will crush anything in its path, they just need to be used to the right capacity.

You reach for that shoe/folder/mental and emotional crutch. It starts to walk away, you ease up the tension in your neck, take deep breaths and begin to realize what a fool you are for getting so scared in the first place. After all, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

But, The spider moves again!! This time…in your own direction and it’s MUCH bigger than you anticipated. In fact, it must be poisonous. You are definitely going to die. Thoughts of death, paralyzation and foaming from the mouth occur to you – there is no way you’ll survive and you feel so lonely. Why did you ever get yourself into this situation? In a small apartment, alone and with something so different from you encompassing the same space. You should have stayed living with your mother forever where she could kill the spiders for you.

You panic, jump up and down, reach for your phone – but then it kicks in. Survival instinct. You are a ninja – a spider-killing, change-conquering, death-defying superhero.

The spider is dead. Your hair is sticking straight up. You have goo on your shoe.

You feel elated. You spray spider-killing spray all over your apartment, you are ready for the next attack and you feel stronger than you ever have before. Nothing can take you down. Why aren’t there more spiders to kill everyday? – you think to yourself.

OK, so maybe the spider-killing metaphor went on a bit too long, but you get my point.

I’m expecting highs and lows along the way, and I’m expecting to get hit with something nasty when I least expect it, but I also know how great I will feel once it’s all conquered, my life is on a path and Chicago is where I can call home.

Fully Assimilated?

Posted on by
23
Pin it

It’s come to that point. It’s come to that point where I don’t remember what I used to say in America, and what I began saying when I got here in England. The words, the sayings, the colloquialisms, the phrases – it’s all becoming mushed, mashed, shaken, and definitely stirred, in my mind.

After becoming extremely agitated by a loud, screechy Canadian woman sitting behind us in the bar on Sunday night, I began to think about how much I’ve actually changed. I was so annoyed at this woman and her loudness, that it made me think that if I don’t identify with that brash breed of humans anymore, and yet it’s still in me – where did it all start to change? When did I start to change? My mannerisms, my wordings, the expressions – they’re getting all tossed about, not knowing where they came from.

I’m not sure if I always said “Sat Nav” or if that is a phrase I learned here. In fact, I’m not sure if there is another word for Sat Nav anymore. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t say “I’m knackered” or “I’m shattered” or “I’m chuffed.”

I’m afraid I’ll be scared to drive on the right side of the road. I’m so used to driving on the left side, it’s become second nature. I no longer fear for my life when trying to cross a road on foot – cars trying to slam into me from different directions.

I can’t imagine calling the game “soccer.” It just seems wrong now. When and how did I figure out that I knew all the names of the players in Manchester United? And, when did I begin to understand what Sir Alex Ferguson was actually saying in interviews? I don’t even have to really focus anymore – it just comes naturally.

I can’t imagine having table service in a bar. Or tipping bartenders. Or tipping more than 10% for the waitstaff. The dollar sign is seeming more foreign than the pound sign.

I can’t imagine having my groceries bagged for me at the supermarket, or getting charged additional tax on purchases.

Even my knowledge seems forever changed. I can’t remember the time when I didn’t know Wales was actually a country. Have I always had such a strong dislike for Gordon Brown or was that achieved over here? Did I even know who he was before I moved here?

I also don’t know what I’ll do when I can no longer hear news about such British celebrities’ lives as Katie Price, Cheryl Cole, Peter Andre, Fearne Cotton, Holly Willoughby, the Loose Women, Colleen Rooney and the classy Kerry Katona.

When did Jock and I stop arguing about misunderstandings due to cultural differences? Have I changed so much that I am now a part of that culture? Or, do we just understand each other better now?

When did having a tan become so important? Was it before or after I lost the sun?

Courtney, my childhood best friend, came to visit me a few weeks back. (You can read about it here.) I swear I must have seemed like a schizophrenic – constantly wondering if she knew what I meant when I said something, saying words that were foreign to her but were coming out of her closest friend’s mouth. I’m beginning to feel like I may be changed for good.

It was terrifying for a moment because I thought to myself, “How will I relate to my friends and family when I go back home? How will they even know what I’m talking about?”

Nothing a month back home won’t cure me of, I’m sure.

A Change is as Good as a Rest

Posted on by
3
Pin it

It’s easy to look back on this year when someone asks how it went and say “Yeah, it has been fantastic. Ups and downs but fantastic.” Quick. Simple and two sentences. That’s what normally comes out. Sometimes I’ll do a bit of testing to see if they really want to hear how it was or if they are satisfied with the answer. Normally I get the satisfied look because I’ve summed up in two sentences that for the most part I had a great time, didn’t get hurt and can live to tell about it and also may have had some down bits, but that’s life, right?

It’s just that the year was so much more than that. It’s like when you go traveling for a long time and you get back to home, and you’ve experienced so much and have so much to say about it, but most people don’t want to hear it. They say they do, but they really don’t. And I don’t blame them because in the end it was your own experience, it wasn’t theirs. How can they really relate to what you’ve been doing when their life has been so vastly different. They would prefer you to pick back up where you left off and leave it at that. Plus, there’s more to it than that. Perhaps they were upset you left them there and hold a bit of resentment. Perhaps they don’t want to hear because it’s simply not something that interests them or they can even imagine. Perhaps they really want to know about it but seem to think you don’t want to talk about it. Who knows?

This has come up because I recently had an option to go back home early. I’m supposed to leave in August, but Jock and I spoke about me returning this month for various reasons – mostly financial and me missing family and friends. Once I truly thought how it would be to go back to the states, I changed my mind. Not because I don’t want to come home, because in all honesty, there is a big part of me that can not wait. But mostly because I feel like my English adventure isn’t over yet. I have just completed my novel (I ecstatically jump up and down) and am now getting paid to write for an online magazine. Life is happening here and I’m happy. I want to see my friends and family, but I want to complete the adventure I started.

It’s hard to explain all I’ve been through this past year. At times I’ve felt extremely isolated and rejected. At other times extremely welcome and finally at peace with being a foreigner. There have been other times where I’ve felt as free as a bird and other times sheltered and like a prisoner in this country (for reasons I can not explain at this precise moment but will one day come out). Over all, to put my whole experience in one sentence would be a complete injustice. I’m proud to be here and so lucky. I have had chances that other people would only dream of. On the other side dating a person from a different country bears consequences you would never imagine getting into it. On the whole, it has been an experience I would never dream of getting rid of.

We are moving from our house at the end of the month. For that I am excited for as a good friend recently said to me, “a change is as good as a rest.” What happens in the next six months will be an adventure, and for that, I am grateful.