Being in jail is an experience I will never forget. I was 16 years old. My Mom and I had just escaped from communist Czechoslovakia by driving through Hungary to Yugoslavia, and having left our car up in the Alps and climbing into Austria. We had gone through the mountains with little more than a hidden US $100 bill and the clothes on our backs. We had military helicopters circling above our heads for a while. We were scared. I was just a typical teenager with big hair, a big mouth, and tiny self-esteem. I certainly wasn't quite prepared to be escaping a country. It seemed that we are never quite prepared with the big steps we need to take in our lives. My mother almost slipped off a cliff at one point and she could have lost her life if she hadn't managed to regain her balance.
When we finally made it to Austria, we were exhausted, excited, confused, and a whole lot of other things. By a chain of coincidences, we ended up at the police station where we went through the questioning and fingerprinting process. We figured that we would soon be on our way to the refugee camp near Vienna and, soon after that, on our way to Canada or some other blessed free country that would take us. Yoohoo. Freedom found!
Wrong. It was getting late at night and we needed a place to sleep. The police officers called a few hotels and then they said they will take us to The Town Jail for the night. At first, I thought it had been just an interesting hotel name.
It wasn't. At this jail, a scary woman looking like the sidekick from Frankenstein performed a body search and took away our belts and our shoe laces. Then we were taken to the cell, our new "home".
Two bunk beds. A hole in the ground for a bathroom. A three-foot stack of hard core pornography. A water faucet that would only turn on from the outside. A door with no door handle. In short, not a place to invite someone on a romantic date.
The the jail guard left and the big steel door behind us got shut. The next thing I remember is the loud silence and reality started to sink in. "This is freedom? We didn't sign up for this!"
Then things got worse. We got forgotten. We were supposed to only stay for one night but nobody but us seemed to know that. I was starting to understand how zoo animals must feel and I wondered if learning some tricks might increase our chances of being remembered.
When we finally got released, paradise still wasn't found. We stayed in a refugee camp for five months. Anyone employed in a company going through downsizing can relate to the uncertainty of not knowing if there is a job to be had at the end of the next day. In the camp, people didn't even know if they had a country to live in and the stresses were enormous. Even coming to Canada was tough. We didn't know the language or the culture. Things seemed to get tougher and tougher, for a long time, before they got better. If we had an option of going back home, we would have likely done so. However, this inability to turn back and give up made us persevere and find a life we couldn't have had back there.
Have YOU ever gotten yourself into a situation where you believed you would improve your lot in life, only to find a number of things that you didn't "sign up for"? Maybe you started a business or got a job that didn't start out well. Maybe you were married and things got tough. Often, in life, things get uglier before they get better. If you want something, keep going, don't turn back just because things aren't easy in the moment. Based on what I have seen, if success were easy, everyone would be doing it. If you want a result badly enough, you will get it but you must be willing to wait and do what is necessary. Handle the challenges of the moment in creative ways, but never turn back to give up on what you want!
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