And just this morning, this memory came to my mind: when I was nine, I got lost in Santiago’s “Plaza de Armas”. A place in downtown Santiago, literally the center Chile’s capital city. A place always full of people, known for its pickpockets, and so, a place definitely not safe for a nine year old girl to be lost.
As you may know, I come from a big family. We were 6 kids at the time, and I also brought with me my at that time best friend; so my parents were in charge of 7 kids, and we had been to the center of the city kind of as tourists, as we were visiting my grandparents in Santiago (we live two hours away on the coast).
I remember how scary that was. I remember it so clearly. We went into a store and I got stuck looking at some greeting cards, and then when I looked around I saw no familiar faces. I went to the entrance of the store and just stood there crying my eyes out, cause I had lost my family. I was really scared.
A random woman came to me and asked me what had happened. I told her crying I was lost. Not for one second I thought bad about this woman. I was just a child. So she told me to come with her, that she would help me, and so she took me to the carabineros (Chilean police).
I remember they put me on what I just saw as a police “bus”, and so I went into it and everybody started asking me, worried, what had happened, and why I was crying, with that tone people have when they care. I had no idea all those people were actual “law breakers”, pickpockets or “bad people”. For me they were just people who were there, worried about this little girl crying.
I remember I knew my grandmas number by memory but I was so upset I couldn’t remember it. It was horrible. And this probably only happened in less than a half hour span, maybe less, but I was so scared it felt like more.
Finally, my family had realized I wasn’t there and came to the police and found me safe and sound.
Obviously this is something very memorable in my life, and I will never forget it. And it says a lot about who I am and why I am like I am, cause I also discovered that my family never left without me. The store with the greeting cards (that I thought was a small store) had a door where you entered and you would find the actual store, which was really big, full of stationary stuff, pens, pencils, papers and painting (also coincidentally or ironically my favorite kind of store)... I just never saw this door and instead of going in the store, I was the one who actually had left. So, I was actually responsible of getting lost, but that’s not the point of sharing the story. (Just pointing how I’m usually the one getting myself in trouble since I was a kid)
My point is, that with the clear memory of how upsetting it was to feel lost at just nine in such a place, I have never ever forgotten about all those “criminal” strangers who were actually worried for me. And of course the first nice woman who took me to the police. I guess maybe, subconsciously this is one of the reasons why it’s always been easier for me to empathize with “bad” people. Cause I know, in the end, all people have some good in them.
And choosing to treasure that part of the story, for me that’s a way to choose gratitude over bad experiences.
And I have so so many examples of this. The most recent one was right here in Belgium. This one is not about people but about circumstances. The context: there were works on the train so there were buses (that took three times as long as the train) to replace the trains.
I had been to Brussels for the first Sunday of the month free museums, and on my way back I took the wrong bus (all this because I don’t speak the language because I was actually on time to take it). So the one I took didn’t stop at my stop. It didn’t even enter “my town”. It stopped in the neighboring town. And I had no way of asking the bus driver because I don’t speak French and he didn’t speak English or Spanish.
But on the ride I met a Spaniard, who sat next to me. Juan Diego (I remember clearly because it’s the name of a dear friend), who was vacationing with his girlfriend and some friends here in Belgium. He was really nice and chatting made the trip feel short. Anyway, I got off the train in the neighboring town, hoping to take a bus in the other direction that would leave me in Waterloo (where I was headed). But the next bus would go straight back to Brussels so it wasn’t useful for me. It was already like 10 pm and I had no idea how to get back “home” and I really really didn’t want to bother my friends, so I didn’t.
In Braine L’Alleud (the neighboring town) a man who spoke Spanish and helped me ask the bus driver about getting to Waterloo, after the bus driver said “I don’t know how you can get there at this time”, said something like “but Waterloo is not that far…” and he was right, it was like a 50 min walk, so I decided to walk. But it was dark, and I’m a woman, and you know, it’s not always safe to do that as a woman…at least in Chile, so I thought “omg, these things only happen to me….WHY?” , but decided I was doing it anyway. At least Belgium was safer than Latin America (in that sense of being a woman walking alone at night).
But as I started walking, I found myself in front of a huge like plain field. It was dark with a moonlit cloudy sky, and you could see the stars through the clouds. It was beautiful. I thought “I would have never seen this view if all that hadn’t happened to me….” And so, I was grateful. And in the end it took me just 40 minutes to get home…
Besides, thinking about it, I had Juan Diego the Spaniard, and the man who spoke Spanish for me, to be grateful for also…
All these kinds of anecdotes that “only happen to me” that someone once named “Germanicosas” I realized, are truly the core of my optimism. And it’s that simple, I guess.
If you find reasons to be grateful, then being an optimist is easy. But as I’ve always stated, it’s a choice. A conscious choice. You need to “let go” (a little bit, cause there’s always something to learn) of the bad, to choose the good and finally, be grateful…
