After several months of living in a tent, learning how to rock climb, converting my dog into an “off-leash” type, actually pursuing my one push-up goal and an extended list of new experiences, it’s fair to say that my partner—Wanja— challenges me. Alternatively, all aligned with the great balance of equality, I bring up for Wanja the areas he’s expanding in—like, for example, patience, loosening control, meeting people where they are at. In my heartest of hearts, I appreciate this in a partner, see its value, can connect it to life gifting me the lessons I need to grow. Most of the time—4 hours after the situation—I’m grateful, but i'm still a human being with triggers and faults. So at that moment when I'm given the opportunity to go a new way, I lose the drive to work it out and become what I refer to as a forest fire trying my best to become candlelight.
Going from living in a city to taking responsibility for a garden in a Hungarian village means newness—newness means learning—and learning means challenges galore. For my case in particular, learning new things with someone who knows them really well is an advanced level of vulnerability. And me, well, I’m sensitive. And despite the years of empowerment work I’ve been doing, I’m a bit insecure, too. I thought I was different, back in my bubble of routines and familiars. I don’t feel like learning or being told a better way to do something. Sometimes, trying to extend a hose using connectors I've never seen before brings me to tears. Sometimes, having to repeat instructions 3 times before I move past my fear of making a mistake and just go for it can dry out Wanja’s patience. Sometimes, language is an added obstacle. Sometimes, we can laugh at ourselves pretty quickly. Sometimes, it’s 9 am and I’m already crying because I feel incompetent, or lazy, or like giving up.
Wanja’s direct Germanness and my indirect Americanness have the possibility to produce a pretty obvious cultural battle. I can only assume that Germans are used to being told like it is, with less sarcasm or flowers framing their words. Americans, on the other hand, are sweeteners—sweet n low, not honey. Less authentic and more wanting the desired taste as well as a way to skip a bitter outcome. We know how to make things sound better than they actually are, with less sting attached to our words. Partially because of this, and partially because of my own nature, I struggle with conflict, indirectness, and saying it like it is. I learned early on that European directness is different while growing up in a Bosnian household, where it was easier for me to write off my parent's harshness as something they did because they were simply "bad people." Later when I moved to Norway, I realized that, whoops, they weren’t, they were (mostly) just honest and matter-of-fact because that was their norm—to tell it as they felt it.
As I’m getting older, more opinionated, and seriously tired of this ongoing struggle of trying to please everyone, a re-evaluation of the helpfulness of being indirect is unraveling in me. In other words, I'm learning how to not sugar-coating my feelings. Cosmically speaking, I’m a Leo, so I naturally appreciate keeping my pride intact—my ego depends on it. However, I'm beginning to question how much of that pride is built upon false ideas, false interactions, people-pleasing. I feel as though for a long time—maybe always—this fear of directness has followed me, especially when that directness is used to deliver some form of criticism. And yes, in theory, I love the idea of telling it as it is and serving hard truths when the intention is to help someone become their best self, but at the same time, don’t touch me with your words, please, I’m sensitive.
Learning new things takes courage and vulnerability no doubt. I’ve gathered that much by listening to TED talks and reading self-help books and following Brene Brown on Instagram, but I didn’t truly feel it until I started to work on acquiring all the skills I’ve always wanted to have but was too held back by the fear of failure to ever actually try to acquire. But there comes a time—and there always does—when we can more clearly sort out the patterns we don't want anymore, the ones that don't serve us the same way they did before. That's where the magic happens, and that's where I'm at, and I’m grateful for it, the opportunity to heal the parts of myself that have taken so many side streets just to avoid being poked there where it hurts, there where it's tender.
So—we’re learning. And crying. Aside from gardening and cooking and climbing, love is also a school for us both. We’re equals, we remind ourselves over and over again, and both of us should provide one another with scenarios in which we're offered chances to grow and overcome in areas where we might be blocking ourselves from fully experiencing life. Wanja’s working on his patience, I’m working on my ability to accept criticism. We’re both finding ways. And when we can hear each other out and identify all the intense emotions as strong fires shrinking into candlelight, however tiny the situation may be, it feels like a big human success.
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