He said "Don't be so negative! "

When my boyfriend came here I was super excited and nervous. I knew what I had experienced and wasn't sure what he would experience. I recall giving him some basics like: people are going to stare. just keep moving. The kids--they will say hello. Sometimes they will shout it. You are welcome to say hello back but try to say salam instead. A hand over the chest is a sign of respect. Eat the bread and other cultural tips.

But that didn't happen on the good foot as much as I wanted it to. Soon as he got here we had a couple of issues. When Thomas got off the plane I saw him at the carousel to collect his luggage. I decide to take a seat and wait for him. After a number of people came out through customs, but Thomas didn't-immediately I thought the worst. They must have detained him for something. Maybe something was wrong with his visa and they have to ask him a few questions. Damn Azeri's on that bureaucratic bullshit. Here we go! I went back to the doors to see if I could see him again and he was gone. I called my security officer for help and learned that Thomas was in the back filling out paper work-the protocol for lost luggage.

I don't know why I panicked but I did.

When we got to Shirvan I had only prepped him just enough for the taxi ride into town. I made sure to give him a couple of words because I knew that the taxi driver would speak to him first before speaking to me. But Thomas couldn't recall much of the language I had taught him so the taxi driver proceeded to deal with me solely off language capabilities. However another passenger quickly caught on to the circumstance and knew that while I could understand what was being said-Thomas wouldn't. The male passenger hit on me in-front of Thomas and with Thomas being helpless in language we decided to take a different cab.

Those became the stand out first impressions that Thomas received and all I did was make it worse.

I went on and on about certain situations, life, what I deal with that seems to stress me out and to make matters worse I asked others to join with me. It was a terrible-terrible mistake. I hadn't shed much light on the good things that happened to me and it only seemed that soon as something good happened, immediately afterwards I was rubbed the wrong way by something that didn't feel so good. I carried it with me too.If anything negative occured at 5:00pm on Tuesday, I was still brooding over it 36 hours later. We would sit down to eat dinner, head off to sleep and I would wake up and say : I don't want to go out there. He would say : Why? What's the problem? Show me your town. Show me some people. I would clam up and get scared. Worried that someone was going to pass us and shout something derogatory or fall out laughing or stare 4 minutes too long.

So we ran back and forth to Baku and over cups of coffee I would utter things like "These people..." or " See what I'm saying..." or "Please don't do that...because...won't understand." And it was all negative. ALL of it. When I called myself trying to say something positive, I would ice it up with something condescending. Then Thomas would ask about specific people like Peace Corps employees or my host family and would want to know if I felt the same towards them. My reply would be-Absolutely not. Those people are different. What I didn't realize I was doing was essentially talking about the same people. It's like someone expressing a depressing generalization about African Americans and then they will say -EXCEPT THAT ONE!

There is no EXCEPT THAT ONE. If you feel poorly about one, you will likely feel poorly about them all.

Towards the end of our trip, I interviewed Thomas. Going back over the interview I was shocked at how much my personal experiences influenced his opinion. Now mind you-we ran back and forth to Baku for roughly 1/3 of the time he was here. 2/3rds of the time we spent coupled up in my house and finished off our time with 1 night in Gence as we headed to Tbilisi Georgia. If he experienced Azerbaijan, he experienced what I told him. Now yes..we did have dinner with my host family and that was fun. I did take him to the bazaar and that was truly hilarious. The post office crew was great and he was well received at Peace Corps Headquarters.

But he didn't experience Azerbaijan and out of pure concern of what he might go through, I sheltered him and filled his head with nightmarish tales-giving only one side of the story. Which by the way-all of those stories were true. It's just I shared them too much too often.

The last night before leaving, he sat me down and told me that I was being too negative of a person and that much of what I was experiencing was a product of my own attitude. He had observed me hesitate and operate in fear triggered by either my own imagination of what could possibly happen but may not or by something that had happened in the past that I took personally and wasn't able to let go.

I told him that the things I experienced were very real and I had a right to deal with them as I pleased.

He said that I chose to be a certain way.

I said Azerbaijan makes me a certain way.

He said if I spent more time talking about the older woman that kissed me and asked me how I was doing versus talking about some cowardliness behavior, I would feel better.

I said I am only talking about what happens that feels piercingly disrespectful, that boggle my mind and sometimes hurt my feelings.

He said don't waste your energy. It's not helping you. Don't be so negative!

I said nothing.

So that's my personal goal for the next however many more days. To let go of whatever that has happened and recharge my attitude. To take a break from blogging because it's not my intention to offend anyone and I'm worried that the few who are reading this will feel turned off by Azerbaijan and that's honestly not very fair of me.
I'm worried that while I hate feeling discriminated against, I am perpetuating that same behavior just by what I share with people and the generalizations I come to conclude.

Thomas has gone home now and those were my favorite last words. Don't be so negative.

To jump-start this process, I'm going to watch The Secret!


Thank you for reading. Check back soon for something positive.

P.S. While blogs are a depiction of our own understandings and feelings, it is up to the writer to be cognitive of who may be reading. I have flown under the radar in terms of offending anyone in my blog (or so I like to believe) but I'm becoming increasingly aware and even more sensitive to the things that I say and how they may make someone feel. For the record, no one has charged me for what has been written in my blog. This is a move out of self conviction. The minute I can put a halt to my thoughts, then my words will shift as well.

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