Sunglasses Always Fit

One of the many brilliant things about moving somewhere new, where nobody knows you, is that nobody knows you. While I miss my found family in Hong Kong every day, there’s something incredibly freeing about getting to reset my life narrative. 

For better or worse, we get assigned/earn certain roles in all and sundry spheres we operate in – family, friends, workplace, gym, the small Hong Kong neighbourhood 711 where you are single-handedly giving them a reason to keep Cheetos and New Zealand Sauv Blanc in stock on Fridays (shout out to Moon, who never judged my erratic purchases nor how long it took me to scan all my coupon and savings apps). 

I arrived in Guatemala a few months ago with the emotional baggage I decided to bring with me (and 200lbs of actual baggage, but I digress). With the skills and talents and quirks and icks I decided to showcase. I didn’t know anyone here and the guy who’d seen my CV, interviewed and hired me, actually peaced out to Spain after two weeks for a different job.

While many fam and friends have promised to visit, I am remote and don’t have high hopes – flights aren’t easy, and then it’s a 3.5 hour drive through mountains and fog and blockades and questionable motor safety practices and having to literally ask out loud “WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD.” (And if you’re lucky, like me, the driver will pull off the road to tell you where he just saw! A UFO! Over the magnetic field! That will kill us all one day!)

Coming here, in many ways, I was truly fresh-slating it. No one is fact-checking my style, my silence or my contributions, the stories I tell, or bringing up the moments I’ve decided to leave out or behind. No one has seen me at my best or at my worst yet, or at happy hour after a bad day at work. No one knows my boundaries, or that in reality, I have very few. No one knows I play guitar and sing, that I have an intestinal condition that lands me in the hospital for a week if I get too stressed out, or that I love to wear costumes and lead parades. I’ve only recently begun revealing my baking habits (had to get over my fear of using the gas oven first).

After getting burned by the last three schools by over-volunteering my time, opinions, and gifts, it’s a secret delight to say “no thanks, I don’t think I’m the right person for that,” when asked to do something (even when I know I would LOVE it). 

Dear Reader, I’ve kept up the act (I think) of a normal, calm, demure traveling teacher, simply here to rekindle my fluency in Spanish, rewalk my paths as a carefree backpacker from 16 years ago, and rest. Reset after 10 completely chaotic years abroad in Rio and then Hong Kong. No one knows I have a blog! We have barely exchanged instagram handles . . . and yet . . .

There is a beautiful and curious thing that happens when you are an international teacher – whatever well-intentioned walls and boundaries you had thoughtfully constructed before you arrived at your new post – around the right people? They come quickly crumbling down. 

We recognize we’re all here on borrowed time – a year or two contract – so our relationships can’t have the normal trajectory of friendship. “Normal” is where you meet somehow (this is actually a present-day mystery to me – where and how does one make friends these days?!) and then play at acquaintances for a few months, participating in group functions, which is really a long-ass audition for any one-on-one time. Then you finally get the confidence to break the ice with an invitation to hang out at an activity you both enjoy, ideally scheduling something else concrete afterwards, so you have an exit strategy in case your gamble doesn’t play out. 

However, I’m so delightfully and comfortably self-assured now – confident enough to move abroad as a single woman – that my personalities can be quite direct and obvious. At 40 years old, I am developed enough that I know I just don’t want to waste even five minutes doing something I don’t enjoy with someone I don’t get along with. Despite my efforts (which were lowkey, at best), most everyone has figured me out quite quickly, and I’ve got a few good ones that love me anyway.

It’s awfully freeing to know I can say “that’s not part of my journey this weekend” and experience no jealousy at all when hearing about things that happened, fun times that occurred and did not require or miss my influence, the way that I used to. The things I used to go along with, worrying I’d miss out on something!? Ugh. I’m sad for that version of me that went along with it. The books she could have read. The frosting she could have eaten in peace. 

I recognize this attitude as a privilege of getting older and growing more secure in who I am . . . and I can only hope this is a continuing trend for women and men moving forward – knowing you knowing you. 

I walked into this particular job knowing I’d be good at it, probably definitely overqualified, taking a 99% paycut because I believed in the mission of the place, giving myself permission to sit back and learn how the school operated in the context of the culture before I offered any help.

And I gave myself space. Because in truth, I’d been made redundant at a place I’d poured my life into. I cried and stress-dreamed and sweated for a job, for  principals, for an idea of a school that I had made my entire life, and then the rug was pulled out from under me and I had to quickly pivot my life from the plans I’d laid for years. And then I’d been nervous for many reasons, coming here, but especially about making friends and finding my space and place in this time.

I’m happy the many laid plans I made that God laughed at have led me here, and I know I’m in the right place. It’s confirmed often with my students and the big and small breakthroughs we have, even the ones that keep me up at night in worry. It’s confirmed in the deep joy I feel in a daily deep blanket snuggle to listen to the rain and drink tea and read and nap without guilt or FOMO. It’s confirmed when I walk to the lake every day and look at the volcanoes VOLCANOES and hear the water and pet the stray dogs (don’t tell my mom) and let a few walk with me along the stone path. 

It’s confirmed in the friends I’ve made – taking road trips and sharing one toilet between the four of us after knowing each other for 20 days, discussing our enneagram scores over terrible wine and chaos charcuterie boards of a third world country and debating Harry Styles albums, visiting Hobbitenango and walking through the town carnival together and paying ACTUAL MONEY to ride the sketchiest rides you’ve ever seen in your life, drinking cheap beer on the street and sharing things we’ve never told anyone else, like the worst place you ever almost pooped your pants, because we’re here? Together? What are the odds? So why not be completely yourself?

I went back to factory settings when I arrived here and shed the weight of expectations and assumed roles and history. These settings I’d acquired after seven years in Hong Kong weren’t heavy, anyway. But it was still a shedding and a reset all the same and. And I’m feeling really lucky to be known and loved and understood for who I am. 

So the lesson here is – something wrong? Move country. I’ve tried it three times now and 60% of the time it works every time. You just might meet Gandalf.