Dream big, and be willing to look really dumb

Okay so, scenario: you’re a woman who, through some grand series of inconveniences, has to pee on the side of the road. Common sense dictates that you should use your skirt to cover your ass. That just makes sense. Or, according to the wisdom of one of my great aunts, there’s an equally good solution to this problem, one that will equally, if not more, protect your reputation: you can use it to cover your face instead.

These were the thoughts that haunted me as — 22 hours into a bus ride from Poland to Romania — I realized that I was on the verge of peeing my pants. There had been a bathroom break an hour before, but with a complete lack of foresight, I had drunk an entire Lipton green tea since then. And now, here I was, on a small bus that was essentially a glorified minivan full of a half dozen elderly Romanian people and my roommate, Carmen, who I had to convince to ask the bus driver to stop.

After consideration, Carmen acquiesced, and one of the most surreal moments of my life followed: a discussion, in Romanian, with a bus driver, about the possibility that I had a bladder infection. That was a moment I could never have anticipated and never want to relive.

The bus driver agreed to stop; a good fifteen minutes of crawling residential traffic later, I saw the gas station sign, and I thought I would cry. When we pulled in I ran, in only my socks, across the parking lot only to be greeted by the cackling face of the devil.

There was a line out the door for the women’s bathroom. The demonic laughter of Satan and the Lipton tea company echoed in my ears as I realized what was about to happen. Carmen, who had accompanied me in case I needed a translator, spoke the words that I was afraid to think: “You’re going to have to go outside.

I ran out to the grassy backyard. About fifteen people were standing or sitting in the immediate vicinity. The thing about traveling is that you’re always relatively anonymous. I was going to be in this country for three days. I was never going to see any of these people again. And so, with my metaphorical face covered by my anonymity, so help me, I squatted to pee in broad daylight behind a Romanian gas station. The people didn’t even look at me. They were either kind enough not to stare, or they just did not care at all.

This is just one example of the kind of exercises in humility you experience every day as a traveler. I have asked for help operating the public transit more times than I can count. I once had a stranger help translate pizza toppings for me. I once witnessed a girl, when asked in Polish which color she wanted, answer “potato.” The point of all these anecdotes is that if you want to experience new things, if you want to do things for the first time, looking like an idiot is just a part of the package. Okay, peeing in the yard of a gas station is not a part of the package. I absolutely did that to myself. But, experiences that knock you down a peg and leave you feeling pretty dumb are just intrinsic in learning new things.

In another strange plot twist of my experiences here, I’ve learned more Spanish than Polish. Early on, when I’d speak with the native speakers who lived in my building, I’d consistently make the same mistake: instead of saying “sueno como una idiota,” (I sound like an idiot) I’d say “sueño como una idiota” (I dream like an idiot).

From this vantage point at the top of the pile of utterly humiliating experiences I’ve had in the name of chasing dreams, I can see that both are probably true. But I can also see that neither are necessarily bad things.

To quote the great Amy Poehler, “There’s power in looking silly and not caring that you do.” If you can accept that sometimes you’re not going to be able to cover your face, or even your ass, and take chances in spite of it, life has so many possibilities for new experiences.
–  katdiane17@gmail.com