A Pep Talk From Ukraine

 

The past six or seven months or so, I have been seeing a new therapist who has been walking me through a "trauma timeline" of my life. It is about as intense as it sounds. We started at my earliest memory and have discussed anything I remember from my twenty-three years that at all doesn't sit right with me. Whether it is traumatic, sad or unsettling. As we have been working on it, I have thought more about my life story than I probably ever have. Though it is mostly the hard things we have discussed, sometimes it reminds me of positive moments or memories. 

As I was describing the twists and turns of my life to my counsellor, I remembered an instance where something that was really troubling turned into something really positive and I will never forget it. I wrote down some point form notes and wanted to sit down here and document it and share it with anyone who might stumble across this post. 

I worked at a car dealership in Calgary for two ish years when I first moved out here. I mostly liked it. I complained about it a lot but in hindsight I probably made a big deal over things that weren't that deep. But anyways, I made friends with a lot of the staff as well as some enemies with the staff. At my dealership we had a lot of Ukrainian refugees working as lot attendants. They were learning English as they worked and were fascinated with us Canadians and our culture. I hit it off with a few of them pretty quick. 

This was around the time where my fear of flying was at its peak. Brody and I were also travelling back and forth to Abbotsford frequently and the travel always brought me immense stress and anxiety that I expressed to my co-workers. One day, it was the eve of my travel day and I was really loudly stressing about the flight. One of the Ukrainian lot attendants (let's call him Joe) was invested in my fear and sat me down and kind of talked me through it kindly. I don't remember the words that were said, but obviously I lived to tell the tale and the plane landed. 

Months later, we were all prepping for the company holiday party. I was again loudly expressing my anxiety about attending the party because there was someone going that I really did not want to cross paths with. I had multiple bad experiences with this person and did not feel like making small talk at a party. Joe overheard my concerns and quickly came over to confront me about my decision to not attend. He says, "Tell me what this is about you not going to the party." I responded with, "I am just too afraid to face this person and I don't think I can do it." He says "Are you the same girl who was scared to go on a plane and then remembered how strong and brave she is and got on the plane and everything went fine? Always remember what you've already survived when worrying about what is to come." 

I really didn't have many words after he dropped that bomb on me. He was right. Looking back on it he was probably maybe sharing a bit of his own experience with fleeing Ukraine in a war to then come to a new country where he maybe wasn't completely accepted and had to deal with all the hurdles of a culture shock like that. He had gone through hell to then arrive at a set of new challenges. He killed it. It gave "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" a whole new meaning to me. Though I haven't seen or spoken to Joe in about a year, I was glad he was around at this moment to talk me through my anxieties and remind me what I've survived and what I can face.