Dubai Life: Culture Shock - 3 Months

Yep, we still live in the Middle East. 

Sometimes I catch myself repeating that phrase in my head.  There's a complex mix of emotions tied to it, some of which I'll try and divulge here.  Again, this post is incredibly long.

First off -- I'm fiiiine.  My first post on culture shock was blunt, and sad, and probably written at the lowest point of this journey thus far.  It's been about 8 weeks since then, and I can honestly say it's gotten a little bit better with every passing week.  It's still all very true, but much less tragic than it felt 8 weeks ago.

And second, I want to clarify from my last post that the source of all my workaholic angst is me.  It's not the job, it's me.  No one at work told me I had to devote my entire life to it, or that I should abandon my hobbies, or stop making friends, or anything like that.  (Especially not my most recent company, which was incredibly social.)  What I've always *known* about myself but pushed to the back of my mind at various times of my life, was how susceptible I am to the concept of striving to be great at something.  Even if that something isn't what makes me happy, I still want to be good at it.  So yeah, it's complicated.

But back to the topic of culture shock.  For me, there are two components: 
1)  not understanding how to "do life" out here, and 
2)  having LOTS of free time and not knowing what to do with it (which was mostly what the previous post was about).

How to "do life" in Dubai
Honestly, we're still figuring this out but I feel like we've come a long way.  Far enough that we're just starting to really enjoy ourselves...finally.  Everything (and I mean everything) works differently here and the only thing you can do is learn via trial and error, every single day.  And I'm not even talking about culture -- just the physical acts of taking care of your house, buying the things you need, and getting through the day.  
It can be little things like going to 5 different stores to find one permanent marker - so simple but so hard! Or, learning that most stores have rotating inventories so the food, household item, dog toy, etc. that you bought last month is by no means guaranteed to be found this month (or ever again).  Or, my recent favorite - that Ziploc brand bags really are the best, and worth driving all the way across town for.  Especially if you're like me and you like to put stuff in them and shake shake shake.  So many meals have exploded all over my shirt, counter top, and kitchen floor.  
But we're also learning bigger things like that our giant water holding tank is supposed to be disinfected every 6-12 months (who knew?), and that when we hire someone to do it they bring a small and wiry person who crawls inside and scrubs every inch by hand (a very humbling thing to witness).  Or, that the Dubai police can give you a traffic ticket without pulling your over.  You get a nifty little text message that tells you all about it.  (It's fine, we totally deserved it.)  Or, that our water pressure pump can mysteriously be turned off by who knows what/whom because it's in your open-to-the-public carport (this happened today), and then your water doesn't work and you have no idea why so you spend all afternoon and call 4-5 people and schedule 2 appointments to figure it out.  After you resign yourself to getting through the next 24 hours without water, your gardener comes over (carrying a lawnmower on his bicycle no less), flips a switch and 'voila!' it works again.  

Sometimes (i.e. oftentimes), the things we don't know leave us feeling really stupid.  There isn't anything wrong with Dubai, we just never learned this stuff in the 30+ years of being Americans.  But with each new experience/lesson we're trying to remember everything so that next time, we'll know.  And so far, that's been good; easier.  I've also noticed that we're getting better at the whole marriage-teamwork-communication thing, because we have to in order to accomplish the simplest tasks here.  It's a good thing, a silver-lining.

How to fill all that "free time"
The universe has a funny way of coming full circle.  Not even a year ago, I was complaining to Steve about my lack of free time.  With all the hours I put into work, and cooking, and cleaning, and running errands, and other blah tasks to keep our life up and running, I felt bereft of any free time.  And now, here I sit with so much free time that it's driving me insane.  How appropriate.
My last culture shock post danced around it, but the real heart of the issue is this - I've spent a decade building only one part of my life.  And now that part is not enough.  I'm ready to cultivate the rest of my life and in doing so I'm asking myself hard questions about who I really am, what I want in life, and what I'm willing to sacrifice.  Those are questions I'm still working through, and I expect will consume some part of my thoughts for the remainder of my life.  

But for now - over the course of the last 8 weeks and today - I have been remembering how to be something other than an office-bot.  I continue to take pleasure in the kitchen, and have learned a couple new tricks.  I can now ferment my own kimchi, make English muffins from scratch, create a plethora of fusion tacos, and send Steven to work with delicious onigirazu for lunch. I've also perfected making margaritas from scratch (even the sweet and sour mix!), and learned that I should never ever have more than 2 big ones.  I'm still trying to master our favorite Thai dishes and Tom Kha Gai and Yum Nua are at the top of the list.  

This is exactly how we do it.  I'm the one in black.

I've also spent a ton of time reading.  It's an old friend that I haven't paid attention to for a while, mostly because I couldn't handle any more screen time/staring at more text.  But now that my day includes a lot less data-staring, I've been soaking up all the glorious words.  In the last 8 weeks I've embraced the site Goodreads as a source of new book leads (please tell me if you have other sites/sources for book leads) and have become an active user of my various library memberships.  I've read nearly a dozen books so far and rekindled my love for the Economist.  It feels good.  

And of course, for us there is always travel.  Steven and I are embracing travel as a means of coping.  And really, it's one of the best perks of being over here - everything is so much closer than it was before.  And yes, we could just be distracting ourselves by introducing new and fresh places, but right now we're okay with this.  We're having a blast.

In all, getting over culture shock is still an ongoing (but much smoother) process.  I think I'll adjust to the nuances of Dubai and the culture far sooner than I'll be able to answer the "what is your life worth" question.  But several years ago I read a graduation speech by Anna Quindlen, and the words have stayed with (i.e. haunted) me ever since. These snippets in particular seem especially relevant today:

"You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are.  So I suppose the best piece of advice I could give anyone is pretty simple: get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you’d care so very much about those things if you developed an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast while in the shower?"

"It is so easy to waste our lives: our days, our hours, our minutes." 
"It is so easy to exist instead of live. Unless you know there is a clock ticking."

"You are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on the bus, or in the car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul."

"All of us want to do well. But if we do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough."

So that's the deal.  I'm aware of the ticking clock and the fact that I won't live - much less be young - forever.  (Calm down, nothing is wrong.  I'm just getting old.)  These thoughts have been brewing for a while, but moving to Dubai has pushed me into this headspace sooner than I would have meandered in my old life.  Now that I'm here, I'm taking a good hard look at myself and what I've created as my adult life.  There are areas I'd like to change, so I'm working on it.  And, thank goodness, there are also plenty of areas I'm exceptionally happy with and proud of, for which I'm grateful.

Sven's camera skills.