Flashing Green Men Crisis

As I stand at the cross walk, while walking to work (which just for the record: takes me less time to walk to work here than it does to drive to work in LA...ahh the joys of no traffic) I panic. I continue to stand there for a few more seconds, which turns into a few more minutes. Why? Because the flashing green man is not flashing. I start to panic because I have waited through a few light rotations. In the States I know that is okay to cross when the light is green for the cars, even if the flashing green man is absent. You just look to your left to make sure that no car is making a left hand turn on an arrow you might not see, and then confidently walk across knowing that no car is going to hit you.

Well, that is in the States where I know by instinct what side of the street people drive on. Where I know that when an arrow is green that the car will be turning into the right hand lane(not the left). That if I walk across on a green light that there is no one coming because of a law that I am unaware of.

Frozen staring at the traffic light with no idea what to do and with a KIWI smirking as he watches this process in my head from his car. I panic. I feel stupid. I want to laugh at myself, but there was more important things to figure out like how was I going to quickly not feel like an idiot and out of control, because I can't figure out how to walk across a simple cross walk when the flashing green man wasn't present in my eyesight.

I do what any respectable, prideful woman would do: I fake it with the utmost confidence. I whip around and start walking down the side of the road I am on and decide right then and there that I will just jay walk....and hope that there is not huge fines for that in NZ. As I so bravely flip around with my lap top bag, purse, and lunch bag, I hear a low chuckle from my left side. I briefly glance back to see a Kiwi smiling like he has just been privy to the discussion I am having in my mind and the emotions that are rolling through my body at light speeds. I make eye contact with him and think (as if he is truly inside my mind and could hear me) I will conquer this and I am not DUMB. Quickly turning back around, since now cars are coming at me I jump up on to the side walk and stroll away towards work, thinking I actually like this side of the road better anyway.

Now I know that the lack of a flashing green man did not cause the crisis I felt that morning, but I do know that it exposed my fear of not quite knowing how to be here. This was my first "feeling dumb in a different culture" moment. They usually just happen so much sooner for me, maybe because I usually can't speak the language, maybe it is because I have grown a bit... Either way it was there, reminding me that I am not invincible and no one asked me to be. And sometimes when the flashing green man is absent and life feels a bit out of control it is not the end of the world. So many times I long for the green man...someone to tell me walk now. But sometimes when you have to work a little smarter and harder the satisfaction is greater and you end up on a side of the street you didn't want to be on but realized you liked after all.

New Zealand is like any other place. Crosswalks that are confusing, people that drive you crazy, coffees that are made bad, days that you just want to cry or be pissed off, but at the same time it is full of life, people that make you laugh, beaches that make you glad you are alive, candy that makes you smile and life's fears that might never go away. Yet it is where I am living today and I don't want to miss even the flashing green men crisis' in my day because it is my day to enjoy and experience and I will never get it back.