In our military family household, we always agreed that IF we were ever offered the opportunity to experience an OUTCAN posting my husband was to say YES and we would jump in with both feet. After 33 years of service, it was not looking like this type of posting would be in the cards for us. Yet in December 2021 the offer to screen for a position in Latvia came our way. Little did you know that our life lesson of - EVERYTHING IS A THING - was about to begin.
While I consider myself a well-seasoned military spouse, having experienced 5 deployments, 2 IR postings and countless military related separations and postings, living OUTCAN presented us with many new life lessons and challenges. In the beginning we easily became frustrated with each other because I felt disempowered, and my husband wanted to be able to find a “fix” to make things easier for me while living in a foreign country. After the first month of our OUTCAN adventure we made a deal that instead of becoming angry at the situation or frustrated with each other, we would say to each other- EVERYTHING IS A THING when we were faced with a new situation.
Some examples of when we used the EVERYTHING IS A THING phrase are:
When we first went to a local grocery store in our new country, it took us 2 hours to buy 10 items because we had to use google translate to figure out what it was we were actually buying.
Doing our banking online -easy right? Nope, it is a THING because now we had to learn how to use a banking authenticator calculator to access any type of banking.
Making meals for my family and friends is one of my favorite things, but guess what, it was a THING. I had no sweet clue how to use my oven. It had functions that I had never used or heard of and the manual that our landlord kindly left for us was in every language except English.
Streaming our favorite TV shows. Now we really thought we had this one beat, but yet again, it was a THING. Turns out you needed to have something called a VPN, and not just any VPN, one that is compatible with your chosen streaming device.
Going through an initial car inspection when it first arrives from Canada. We considered this was a THING because it literally takes all day to complete and had requirements that we had never heard of until we moved to Europe.
The tasks listed above are THINGS we do in Canada all the time without giving them a second thought. We had to relearn a lot of basic everyday adult skills that I had thought I had mastered at age 49, but as it turns out I had a lot to learn. I think what really helped us as a couple is that we consciously decided to support each other and not to let these new challenges become a source of anger and frustration, but to simply say to each other EVERYTHING IS A THING. We have now been living in Latvia for a year and half and I am happy to report we are enjoying every minute of this new adventure, and the new challenges are faced in good humour knowing that EVERYTHING IS A THING!