Locked Out!
- Nitasha Sharma
- Jan 22, 2020
- 5 min read
As we journey through life, not only do we come face to face with the variety of novel landscapes, we are also gifted with an opportunity of exploring who we are in these different situations. I have seen this to be especially true when we come across challenging moments while travelling. Some of these experiences are etched in my mind. And on deeper contemplation they have brought with them the gifts of invaluable lessons and awareness. At times painful to the hilt, and at times bearable and amusing on retrospect. The moments garbed within difficult yet interesting situations. As we celebrate our 10 years of togetherness, our 10th wedding anniversary, I looked back at one of those experiences when we were locked out of our apartment at Saarbrücken in Germany.
After a long day, as we came back home after visiting some function far away, all we were thinking of was how we needed some tea and rest. We came out of the lift and went towards the apartment, My husband pulled out the key from his pocket and put it inside the keyhole, I waited with a lean on the wall for the door to open. He gave me a blank stare and said, “The key is not going in.” I told him, “Yeah, right! no time for jokes, let’s get in”. He tried again, pushed the key in the hole, but it didn’t budge. We tried peeping in through the keyhole with the mobile flashlight lighting up the way but could not see much. However we realised that we had left the key in hole from the inside, which is what we know now, we are not supposed to do. Of course, now was too late for that. I tried my hand too, but nothing worked. Both of us started getting a little worried. It was already close to midnight. We tried getting help, after having fully realised that we were locked out!
Our kind neighbour who we had never met before came to see what could be done. Unfortunately nothing seemed to work. We got connected to the apartment caretaker, who sure was not appreciative of the late night call. He spoke German, and with our broken German skills the best bet was to connect our neighbour with him. The caretaker dismissed the possibility of anything being done at that late hour. He said, “I could try getting the locksmith in the morning, till then you have to wait”. So here we were locked out of our apartment, in a foreign land, with not many people who understand English, in the late hours of the night.
Now we could have easily fallen trap to the bickering and nagging. Starting with, “why did you have to leave the key in the key hole on the inside.” With a counter reply, “how am I to know that we are not supposed to do that? This is not how it works back in India.” And a quick retort, “but then there is a place for the key and that is where it needs to be!” And a rebuttal, “ I did not want to go out in the first place. Why did you have to drag me out, and now see, we can stay out as long as you want”…It could have gone on and on with no end, ruining our opportunity of adventure and growth.
Many a times we err and label our impulsive reactions as natural responses. Thankfully we chose to respond differently that day, unlike those other times. There we were holding hands, taking a walk under the starlit sky, figuring out together our next step. We took a bus to the closest hotel. I and my husband ended up spending a night there. Now, imagine two people, in the prime of their youth, entering a hotel late at night with no luggage what so ever, asking for a room just for one night...One had to be there to witness the unforgettable look on the lone receptionist’s face. Suspicion brewing forth, judgments and questions branching off, so much so, he got us to make the payment even before we could get into our room.
The next day as we waited for the locksmith, we kickstarted the day with hardly a few cents in our pockets, enjoying the choicest breakfast at a local bakery. Choicest because we had to figure out what we could afford with those few cents. And then we roamed around aimlessly yet joyfully and freely in the city, soaking in the sunshine and visiting the attractions. It being a weekday, playing tourists was even more fun. How we sat under the shade of a tree, overlooking the church Ludwigskirche. I rested my head on my husband’s lap and he read out the facts about the Lutheran baroque-style church written on the pamphlet. I don’t remember those details but I remember the joy, the peace and the love. Being locked out actually turned out to be not so bad. Actually It got us closer as a couple. It became an experience, like many others, which taught us lessons in full bloom.
For one, many a times we take for granted the comfort and security, the roof on the top provides. That indeed is something to be grateful for.
Times such as these are disguised opportunities for taking relationships to another level of patience, understanding, support, comfort and fun. These elements, seemingly so, play a game of hide and seek during such situations and as explorers in our own right when we strive to find them in unfathomed corners, Eureka becomes an understatement. We realised whatever be the challenge, if we stuck together we could deal with it.
Accepting our fate, after the initial shock took some time. And once we did, we realised we could actually have fun living impromptu, without any baggage. This revelation was absolutely freeing, as we realised to really live life joyfully we do not need an abundance of things rather we simply need a heart brimming with love and contentment…and a mind ready to make wise choices which can be challenging.
Acceptance and openness to exploring the world, not through a preset plan but through what life presents forth is a much needed skill. It calls upon tolerance to ambiguity and uncertainty. It demands adaptability to the newer situation and resourcefulness to seek anything and everything that could come handy. It requires compassion and kindness towards oneself and the other. And with all these in place, instead of just surviving the challenge we can choose to thrive in life because of it. This for me is resilience in action. And for the software of our mind to work efficiently, this is the RAM we need to install - Resilience Action Mind.
Living life mindfully amidst the most mundane routine tasks like, locking the door with awareness, especially in unfamiliar surroundings, where every mistake could cost us more than we can imagine, is not a meditative luxury but a choice-less need.
Even though we had the key we could not enter, as the environment for the key to work was not conducive. Similarly having the pieces of the puzzle of life is one thing but to be able to fit them together and start making sense of why and which piece goes where, is another. They eventually get together, sometimes in a click, sometimes with a push or a pull. All the while our reservoir of grit and gratitude is summoned.
Most of all it is also important to grant oneself the permission to be human, to say, oops! It’s ok…
The journey begins here, the lessons learnt and shared, the corrective measures and growth thereof become an indispensable part of the gestalt of life. By loosing our key to the apartment we may have serendipitously stumbled upon the key to unlocking life. We were locked out of our apartment but thankfully locked in to life. And that calls for a ‘Eureka!’
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