One of the resolves* I have made in an effort to be slightly less of a misery guts and slightly less self-absorbed and slightly more fun to be around is to slightly less often blame Abu Dhabi for my problems.
I think (though this is pure self-absorbed speculation) that it has been far too easy to blame everything on Abu Dhabi (and, by extension, the mister, though we won’t go into that right now, suffice to say, if you think your relationship needs a test, I can recommend a stint in Abu Dhabi…ahem…and moving on and so forth and etceteragh).
Sure, this is not my ideal location. Certainly, I am not well-suited to the Abu Dhabi life. Definitely, there are zillions of other places I would rather be. But that’s not Abu Dhabi’s problem. I do have a choice. I could leave. For sure, that choice, the choice to leave, would have its own limits and implications, but it is a choice I could make. I have more choices than ninety percent of the world’s population.
So, having decided that I will stay, I need to accept certain things. And I need to stop blaming Abu Dhabi for everything. Like tonight when I couldn’t remember the administrator password for the computer? A password so cunning, so mixed between capitals here, lower case letters here and numbers there that between the three of us – two sharp-minded lads and me – we could not remember exactly what went where. As I sat, fantasising again about a life lived elsewhere, as I sat, ready to cry with homesickness once again, I had one of those moments when you realise something.
I realised, that not living here would not solve this particular problem.
And the night got better from that point on.
*You know, I’m really not sure, are resolutions the same as resolves? Because what I mean here is that I am resolved to act in a certain way which seems to me is not entirely the same thing as making a resolution. Do you see what I mean?
I’ve got an Adelaide friend who lived in various exotic locations for many years and who does exactly that now that she’s settled back in Adelaide. I’ve had a small amount of success in convincing her that blaming Adelaide for everything is a self-fulfilling prophecy in the sense that the more she blames it the more unhappy she is about living in a place that actually isn’t to blame. But she does keep backsliding, and I mean, this is lovely Adelaide, so one can hardly blame you for projecting woe onto an altogether less attractive place.
It also sucks to realise that the problems you thought you left behind with the old location have simply relocated with you just in different guises. Or that there is a whole host of new problems that you never even dreamed of which make you almost fond of the old, familiar problems. Either way I’m sure it’s almost always my husband’s fault. Almost.
I spent eighteen years blaming Melbourne for a lot of things that weren’t Melbourne’s fault, but I’d only been back home in Adders for a year or two before I began to realise the truth of what Mindy is saying. As some genius has put it: ‘No matter where you go, there you are.’
And trying to remember passwords always sucks. Unless you write them down and put them somewhere safe but handy, and obvious – which sort of seems to defeat the purpose.
Do you know what? We did write it down. And I have a very clear moment of myself throwing it out. Eldest boy even sifted through all of the scrap paper saying, ‘This might take a month, mum, but we’re going to solve it.’ I think he was hoping I wouldn’t cry.
In further support of the thesis that it is not Abu Dhabi that is to blame, I would like to report that one can test the strength of one’s marriage just as well by shifting to Adelaide, which is by any rational standard, a lovely place to live.
The first year we were here was not a pretty year at all, and last year was only a bit better. But things are starting to look up this year.
That boy of yours is a treasure, isn’t he?
The resolving thing, I do understand. I think I do that myself, and it does seem to work better. There is no need to be disappointed when you don’t always measure up to a verb rather than a noun. You can always be more ‘resolving’ tomorrow.
“There is no need to be disappointed when you don’t always measure up to a verb rather than a noun.”
I want this on a t-shirt too.
It takes 2 years to settle into a new place, esp one which is so different to where you’ve come from. I don’t know if this is helpful. It helps me.
I send my passwords to myself in Gmail, so I can always find them no matter where or on what computer I am. On Macs there’s also an app called Keychain access which can tell you your passwords, if you’re an admin of that computer. But if it’s a case of getting into the computer in the first place, I suggest writing passwords in code in your address book and/or phone. (You have to make the passwords easily codified, ie FirstSon’sMiddle name + 20 or some such thing.)
There’s a medieval saying about pilgrimages (and I obviously don’t remember it exactly, and google has let me down) that is pretty much to the effect that no matter how far you walk you bring all your problems with you.
I say if it was good enough for them it’s good enough for me.
Yeah….I find that whole issues/location thing interesting. If anything, I found Alice tended to ‘amplify’ my issues, I think because of the distance, isolation and toughness of the place. I’m wondering if you find the same about Abu Dhabi (almost wrote Ghraib there!), given it’s even further from your friends and family. It was as if the normal cycles of life were speeded up, more intense in Alice, but things lagged in other ways. Hard to describe.
I think the mediaeval phrase Kate is looking for is ‘Same old shit, different location’. (Just finished an essay on the crusades, I have).
I used to do the same thing about being single – you know, ‘if I had a BOYFRIEND I wouldn’t be sad right now, if I had a BOYFRIEND this would be easier, if I WASNT ALL ALONE I would be prettitier’, or whatever daft thing I was upset about. Ridiculous – especially since a lot fo the things would, I think, have been made WORSE by having another person involved. But my brain is, in general, set up to be disattisfied with its lot.
I remember being miserable at my last job and reading a post by Fugitivus where she essentially says that ‘if I don’t like it, I can leave’. Not leaving says something, either that you secretly enjoy having something to explain your general misery, or that the alternatives aren’t so great, actually. So I decided I would either do something about it or shut up my whingeing. Mostly.