Choose Your Own Adventure
“It’s at this point in conversations when I have to decide who I want to be in that moment. It’s a “choose your own adventure” of sorts. Am I a woman whose family just moved to the suburbs? Or do I explain how I live overseas and I have no idea how much longer I’ll be one of the neighbors?”
The doorbell rang while I was prepping the dining room table to get started with homeschool. When I opened the door, I found a Hello Fresh box sitting on my doorstep. I wasn’t a subscriber to Hello Fresh, but this was the second time someone’s box had accidentally been delivered to me. I picked up the box and carried it into the kitchen, contemplating what to do with it.
I could open it and enjoy it myself. After all, it wasn’t my fault it showed up here. But before I cut the box open, I decided to look up the address. The blue GPS line meandered its way to the destination and calculated the distance. The house was just one street over.
I sighed as I looked at the box of ingredients, knowing what needed to be done. I slipped my shoes on, scooped the box into my arms, and made my way to the neighbor’s house.
Once I reached the house, the door opened before I even had the chance to walk up and knock.
“That must be mine,” the woman said as she met me in the driveway.
We started chatting a little bit until she finally asked, “How long have you lived here?”
“We’ve been here since July,” I answered, intentionally leaving gaping holes in my response.
It’s at this point in conversations when I have to decide who I want to be in that moment. It’s a “choose your own adventure” of sorts. Am I a woman whose family just moved to the suburbs? Or do I explain how I live overseas and I have no idea how much longer I’ll be one of the neighbors? One response guarantees a simple conversation in which I feel like I fit in. The other response can conjure up everything from an abundance of questions to an incurious head nod with glazed-over eyes.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has been caught in this predicament. It’s as if our lives are playing out like one of those interactive specials on Netflix. These are the moments where the scene pauses and gives you ten seconds to choose what to do next.
Let’s cover a few other potential Choose-Your-Own-Adventure scripts one might encounter when returning to the familiar (but increasingly more foreign) homeland country.
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1. A situation in which someone asks you where you’re from.
Adventure #1: Answer honestly.
“Do you mean most recently, or where I was born, or where all I’ve lived in this country? Well, prior to this current location, I was in (insert name of foreign country). That’s where I’ve lived for the last several years. I still live there, actually. I come back every few years, but rarely to the same location. It all depends on where I can find a place to stay. But seeing as how it looks like you’re trying to visualize a map in your head and figure out where in the world that country is located, I’ll save you the headache. Let me tell you what it’s near, or tell you about a more well-known city in that country nowhere near or similar to where I live, or bring up a Hollywood blockbuster that was filmed there. I’m truly not trying to make you feel stupid for not knowing where that country is located. This is probably hurting me, socially, more than it’s hurting you. Let’s start over. I’ll just tell you some of the places I’ve lived in my passport country so we can start finding some common ground to stand on in this conversation before I fall into a deep abyss of embarrassment for deciding to answer your question this way.”
Adventure #2: Answer vaguely.
“I was born in (insert name of city) and I’ve moved around a few times since then.”
2. A situation in which you forgot how to do a basic skill.
Let’s take paying for your groceries as an example. First of all, the cashier is swiping those groceries and bagging them faster than you can put the bags in your cart. You’re a bit flustered when it’s time to pay, and you hand the employee your credit card. You stare at each other for a moment, wondering what’s happening. Why aren’t they taking my card out of my hand?
You ask, “Do you take credit card?”
They motion to the credit card machine and give you an approving, “go ahead, the machine is right in front of your face” nod.
You laugh at yourself and say, “oh yeah, duh,” and swipe the card. The machine buzzes at you, announcing your second fumble as the cashier and fellow shoppers watch you like some alien trying to be human. The machine might as well say, “card denied because you’re behind the times,” on the screen. The cashier is staring at you, wondering if you’ve been living under a rock for half a decade.
“Whoops,” you laugh nervously. “Swiping is sooo two-thousand and late,” you joke, referencing a Black Eyed Peas song that’s over a decade old. (Side note: you should never try to joke in these situations. It won’t help.) You proceed to insert your card into the chip reader slot.
“That doesn’t work,” the cashier says, with a genuine look of concern on their face. “Just tap your card.”
You’ve made a complete buffoon of yourself. What do you say next?
Adventure #1: Give the backstory.
“I’ve been living in another country for the last few years, and they usually don’t even accept my credit card. I’m used to paying with cash, but I haven’t had the chance to find an ATM since being back here. You could probably throw a rock and hit an ATM where I live. Anyway, when the cashier does let me pay with my credit card, I have to hand the card to them, and they do the whole transaction with the card themselves. Obviously, I know how to do it, ha…ha… But, you see, I guess I’ve become accustomed to handing my card to the cashier—hence me handing my card to you.”
Adventure #2: Accept your defeat.
“Sorry, it’s been a long day.”
You proceed to awkwardly tap your card in different spots on the machine before it finally beeps with approval. You quickly push your cart away and resolve to find a different grocery store to shop at until you’re absolutely certain the employee (and fellow shoppers) have forgotten what you look like.
3. A situation in which someone does choose to engage you in conversation about your life abroad but makes stereotypical (and false) assumptions about the country and its people.
Depending on where you live in the world, the conversation will look a little different. Since I live in a country with the world’s largest Muslim population, the conversation usually leads to a person asking me, “Are you scared?” I have the option to going a few directions with this one.
Adventure #1: Dig deeper.
“Tell me what you mean by that question.” This is the response you give to someone with whom you have some sort of relationship, and you want to engage in a healthy conversation with them to get to the root of their question.
Adventure #2: Address the prejudice.
Of course, you’re not always receiving these kinds of questions and comments from friends and family. Sometimes, it’s coming from someone who you might never see again. This is the perfect time to give some food for thought for the person to chew on later.
“Am I afraid of living around Muslims? No. I interact with Muslims on a regular basis. They are my cashiers at the grocery store. They are the doctors I take my children to for a check-up; They are my dental hygienists. They are my neighbors and my friends. Sadly, xenophobia is perpetuated by certain news outlets and media outlets who cherry-pick the way they want to portray a particular group of people. This leads to people forming prejudices, believing stereotypes, and misunderstanding an entire group of people because of misinformation. But it’s interesting you ask me if I’m scared living here, because my friends on the other side of the globe ask me the same question—largely in part due to all the mass shootings happening on a regular basis in this country.”
Adventure #3: Answer matter-of-factly.
Sometimes, you must exercise discernment.
Sometimes, you have to ask yourself, is this the time and the place for such a layered conversation?
Sometimes, you just need to answer their question honestly and succinctly and move on with your life
“No, I’m not scared.”
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These are only a few of the many situations in which you’ll find yourself choosing your own adventure. Sometimes you’ll like how the rest of the story plays out, and sometimes you’ll wish you could go back just a bit and try again. But the good news is (or maybe the bad news, depending on your perspective)—it’s highly likely the next adventure is just around the corner.
Maybe even literally, when you have to go deliver a Hello Fresh box to a neighbor and introduce yourself.