January: Sometimes Things Don't Go As Expected
Of course, do they really ever?
TL;DR—January update: Raising teenage girls during peri-menopause in a semi-developed country during the winter while your passport country teeters on the brink is not a 5-star experience, but we’re okay all things considered.
The girls and I flew back to Tirana after nearly three weeks away over the holidays (C did some additional travel on his own). We returned right in the middle of a cold snap.* Overnight temperatures were at 0 C, which is cold for sure but not intolerable, IF you have accommodation that’s built for such climate.
Of course, Tirana doesn’t typically see such temperatures, and our villa (like most buildings here) has no insulation and no central heating/cooling. I’m very glad the girls and I each had hot water bottles (an investment we made last winter). We filled them with boiling water before bed and snuggled them under the covers to help give an additional layer of heat while we slept. There was just so much cold seeping in through the windows and walls that the individual heaters in our rooms were struggling to adequately warm the spaces.
On the girls’ second day back at school I turned on the tap in the kitchen and nothing came out. I immediately assumed we were having water issues again. We had so many inconveniences last fall with the water situation; I knew I’d lose my marbles if we had to deal with more of that on top of the icebox temperatures in the villa.
The issue turned out to be frozen pipes. The solution was to wait until the temperature warmed up outside. Fortunately, within a few hours it did. But I sat there shaking my head at the absurdity of the situation (from my Western perspective). Why is there no insulation of anything?! (Not of the villa, nor the pipes or the hot water heater.) It’s such a waste of energy.
Of course, I understand that traditionally the temperatures haven’t been this “extreme,” not in winter nor summer. And accommodations across southern Europe generally speaking aren’t built with insulation. But goodness, what a difference it would make, not only for comfort, but also for utility bills and general usage of resources!
We couldn’t heat both the living room and the water tank simultaneously because it sucked too much energy, so we had to choose whether the girls would have warm showers (after waiting well over an hour for the water to get hot enough) or whether we’d hang out together. It was hard to get cozy anywhere.
One night S made a fire in the wood stove in the kitchen. It felt SO good once it got going. We won’t talk about how many tries it took. Normally C starts the fires, but he was still traveling and S was determined. The issue was that we had big, fat logs with bark and not enough kindling. I finally discovered some fire starter kindling next to the upstairs fireplace and that did the trick.
Fortunately, the cold snap didn’t last more than a few days and we resumed our normal winter living conditions, with a slightly chilly/drafty villa rather than one that felt like the tundra.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a regular month without something actually requiring fixing in the villa. This month it’s been needing yet another new cooktop/stove (we’re now on our third one in 18 months—I have no idea why they keep having issues) and needing the toilet fixed. (One night as I was going to bed it wouldn’t stop running and I had to basically open up the wall to get it to stop.) We also needed a bathroom pipe snaked because the shower was flooding the bathroom floor. That actually made for kind of a funny story and self-realization:
We went a couple of weeks without a car and I was honestly trying to see if we could get by without it, but then Car Guy messaged me and told me he had a different SUV for us, with more bells and whistles (e.g., heated seats, sunroof), and he’d give it to us for the same price as the previous one because we’d been good drivers.
I agreed to test it out and it was really nice to have a car again. We don’t drive a lot, but when the girls have things at school or with friends, it’s incredibly handy to have a way to get around, as those are locations the bus doesn’t go and they’re not walkable. We can arrange taxis, but it’s a lot less convenient.
The timing was good because this past weekend the girls both had activities—one requiring multiple trips to/from school and the other at a friend’s house. Well, guess what? C came back from dropping N at a friend’s house, and ~2 hours later I needed to pick S up from school, so I turned on the car (which talks to us in Korean, BTW), and discovered that we had not one, but two flat tires. Say what?!
Both of the tires on the right side of the car were flat as can be; the car was resting on both rims. What the what?! The only thing we can figure is that C must’ve unknowingly driven over something on his way to or from taking N that punctured both tires. There’s so much construction around here that it’s actually a wonder something like this hasn’t happened before. But, yeah, we hadn’t planned on two new tires. So that was…fun.
Oh! And since I couldn’t take the car to pick S up at school, I had to call a taxi. Guess what happened as we were approaching the school? The taxi got a flat tire! I cannot make this up. So instead of being able to take the same taxi back home, we had to order another taxi, which meant waiting in front of the school for ~20 minutes. Not the end of the world, but inconvenient.
The girls have both battled illness since getting back. They’ve had nasty coughs and have taken turns with fevers; they’ve each missed some school and spent their days “off” sleeping and trying to get well.
I continue to experiment with ways to make life here work a bit better for us in terms of daily living. After a complete meltdown (again) over struggling to feed us, I did a coaching session with a friend (he coached me) and I came up with a new take on an old solution to try: Meal planning. I’ve done various versions of meal planning over the years, so it’s not a new idea, but this time the goal has been to create two, week-long meal plans (and the corresponding grocery lists) so I can cycle between them, minimizing the thinking I need to do to feed us.
I like variety, so the idea of a meal plan that repeats is like a snore fest, but I value my sanity more at this juncture, so I’m trying it. I’ve even eliminated “fun” recipes with ingredients that are hard to locate here. Le sigh. But the first week was mostly a success (needs a few tweaks), so we’ll see how week 2 goes. I still have to shop at multiple stores (but having the car and being able to do one big grocery run on the weekend is a HUGE help) and then prep and make the food (very little can be bought pre-made or prepped here), but knowing I have what I need and that I know exactly what I’m making does reduce some of the difficulty.
Speaking of coaching, I’m nearly at 50 hours, which is halfway to the 100 hours I need for ICF accreditation (the global standard). It’s been an amazing journey and I’ve been having so much fun meeting and coaching people from all over Europe and beyond (Malaysia, Thailand, and Tunisia to name a few). Every session is unique; I’ve coached people on topics from surfing (yes, really) to job promotions and so much in between. If there’s something you want to find a solution to and you’re openly willing to explore ways to get there, coaching is a great tool that can help. I’m seeing all the ways it’s helping my life and the lives of those I’m coaching.
I’m also starting some volunteer coaching this spring as part of a program around career and life transitions that I’m excited about. This is an area that’s personally meaningful to me and probably where I want to build my coaching practice (though I’m still exploring other possibilities), so I can’t wait to see what I learn.
I ask the girls coach-like questions from time to time and I’m trying to be a more active listener with them. I’d like to say it’s helping, but parenting teens (especially while living abroad) is challenging. Their emotions are BIG and all over the map. They want easy solutions to complex challenges (don’t we all!) and get frustrated when they don’t appear.
They’re aware of what’s going on in our home country (I drafted a post with my own thoughts on this but it’s sitting in the Drafts folder) while also being frustrated with the challenges of living in Albania. It’s tricky for all of us to be living a semi-settled/semi-nomadic life in an uncertain world. I know it’s not just us feeling that; it’s a widespread reality that’s affecting nearly everyone I meet and talk with.
I won’t take us down that rabbit hole right now; this has been long enough, but those thoughts take up a lot of real estate in my brain these days. Part of me wants to write about it, but some days I barely have the brain cells to read and process what’s going on, let alone articulate the many things I’m feeling. Finding balance between what feels like insanity and sanity is, well, tricky.
To end on a positive note, the days are getting longer and I’m so grateful for that. It’s now light out until just after 5pm here and it feels like we’ve turned a corner. Here’s hoping that’s a metaphor for life.
*I’m happy to say that we missed the weeks of constant rain and flooding, so in that regard our timing was good.