Finding Yourself in a Suitcase

By Jessi Lohman

Sometimes you make plans for life, but life has plans for you.

From the author who's inspired hundreds worldwide with the novel Befriending Death comes her most adventurous book yet, Finding Yourself in a Suitcase-a compelling memoir about how you make plans for life, but life has plans for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483519739

Book preview

Casey

Prologue

For years I kept a secret I cared not to share.

The survival instinct in human beings expands even to the proximity of social environments. Be it pride, an illusion or some other factor that motivates social survival, people have a tendency to pretend they have never been in a weak place. I have not been exempt from this tendency and have caught myself behaving in the same way.

During the course of several years, I learned to recognize the truth about those weak places. The idea of lowering my guard to share vulnerabilities was scary. To acknowledge my secret and volunteer hidden information would open my life to be critiqued and judged. Always having imagined this process to be a shameful experience, I struggled to avoid it altogether.

I feared others would be able to see the weak person back then in the strong person I became. Weak was a person I no longer wanted to be. Weak was the person who was offered an opportunity to visit Costa Rica.

I’ve been known to tell people Costa Rica changed my life. To be fair, the combination of Costa Rica, India and Italy facilitated the stretching required to surpass my shortcomings.

What I know for certain is the person channeling this book today would not have been who I became without that first trip.

When I overcame the weaknesses that held me hostage in my former life, it provided me an opportunity to transform into something greater. Once the transformation took place, like many others I had witnessed before, I pretended as though I had always been the transformation. As the years progressed, reflection and wisdom shifted the short-sighted perspective.

If the transformation others had undergone had been more available to discover, perhaps my own would have taken place much earlier. Yet as perfect as we all pretend to be, those who have crossed the elusive finish line to greatness have something in common. In order to meet greatness, we first must be introduced to weakness.

For the benefit of throwing out more road maps in the pursuit of self discovery, I now recognize there is no shame in the growth of human potential. It is those first few steps of encountering weakness that defines us. So today, I’ve decided it’s time to share my deep buried secret.

Part 1: Costa Rica

Chapter 1

The secret that made me feel sick every time it crossed my mind is this: On the morning of the trip to Costa Rica, I almost didn’t go. Full of excuses and content with mediocrity, I was petrified of becoming a better version of myself.

I laid beneath crumpled covers on my bed, drowsy after a sleepless night in debate; my entire being pretending the alarm clock had not gone off. Fear paralyzed me. Other than a brief sprint across the border to Mexico on a couple occasions, I had never been outside the United States. Although I was beyond the brink of my twenties, days exploring what existed outside my home state of California were quite limited.

This was my Mom’s trip. She and her boss, Dana, had planned to take a combined family vacation together. Mom was bringing me and Dana had chosen to bring two of her grown children as well. My first experience outside the United States, fears included, would be witnessed by an audience of complete strangers.

Four in the morning came and went, my alarm clock whistling. I stared at the luggage beside the bed. Turning off the alarm clock, I rolled over, dunking my head under the covers. Forgetting this whole idea would be so easy.

My brain was not abiding by the decisions defined by my fear. It refused to be still. Costa Rica would be the furthest and most exciting place I had ever seen. The fact that I, an over-worked, middle-class public servant had such an opportunity was unheard of in my social circles. This was the sort of trip amazing people took. And here I was, scared of taking the risk to go in the first place.

For years I had talked to people in my line of work about making decisions and taking chances. Sometimes the single factor eliminating success was settling for mediocrity. I had seen people so afraid of disappointment they did not give themselves the possibility of the greatness they deserved.

I pictured myself on a cold, winter night as a wrinkled woman glancing over life preparing to exit it. Would I, in my final moments, regret my missed opportunity? I pitied the ashamed, older woman I saw in myself.

If you don’t put yourself out there, you might miss out on the best days of your life, I said into the darkness.

I threw the covers back and left the imprint of my body in the bed.

Chapter 2

Twelve hours later I gathered my baggage and stood before the Customs Gate in San Jose, capital of Costa Rica. Six booths were lined up with men in blue uniforms, asking a series of questions to all who entered. Standing in line, I continued to observe my traveling companions.

My Mom had been a Montessori School teacher for twenty-two years. It had been common throughout my upbringing to hear her co-workers refer to her as, The Guru of Montessori. She could take complicated subject matters and create fun, family-geared field trips while writing curriculum articulating how the experiences met state standards. Raising two children as a single parent and attending night school to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in Humanities, anyone would be proud to be raised by such a remarkable woman.

I believed Dana was lucky to have Mom on her staff. A petite, blond woman with a dozen years of administrative experience, Dana was intelligent and sharp-witted. Her soft brown eyes and light-hearted laugh made it easy to relax in her presence, as if no matter what happened, everything would be okay.

Dana’s daughter, Charlotte, stood beside her. In her early thirties, she came close to six feet tall, toned with amazing grace, blonde as her mother and beautiful. Charlotte was also a teacher. An air of confidence surrounded her that suggested nothing could go wrong.

As we boarded our plane in San Francisco, she had appeared within the final moments of check-in. We had worried she would miss our plane and I suspected perhaps I was not the only one who slept through my alarm clock on purpose.

When she came around the corner, calm and collected, smiling wide as though she had planned it that way, I knew I had been wrong. Quite contrary, Charlotte had just returned from a previous adventure, right on time to begin a new one. Despite Dana’s heckling, Charlotte was unconcerned. Her care-free confidence remained intact.

Next, please, the security guard said, motioning to me and distracting me from my thoughts. I placed my paperwork across the desk. He took a moment to evaluate the forms.

Probation Officer you say? He asked. We are hiring. Would you like a job here?

I shook my head and smiled.

I don’t blame you, pay not as good here, he said shaking his head with a grin. "Enjoy pura vida while you’re here."

Pure Life? I thought to myself. What a concept.

One thing life as a Probation Officer was not, was pura vida.

When I began my career, I had a different idea in mind than what came to pass. A launch into the Criminal Justice System had been an accident. After receiving continual promotions at a side job I held at the local Probation Department, it made sense as a graduating college student to see where the side of justice took me.

I had a knack for turning chaos into simplicity and convincing the unbalanced they could achieve happiness and peace in their lives. The stability of the job was appealing. Working with unloved youth and struggling adults was alluring and rewarding. For some time, I desired to make this work my life vocation.

Several years later I came to the conclusion that I had climbed the wrong ladder. Being surrounded by a nonstop charade of burned-out, hostile, angry and sometimes complacent humanity was exhausting. Part of me doubted I would make it out alive between the monotonous stress of budgets, angry criminal minds desperate for services and judgmental colleagues, fearing you would get a promotion they had laid eyes on.

It was not surviving the ordeal that worried me; it was the death of my soul. I knew my heart could only reach out and break so many times before it became encompassed by numbness. I didn’t believe life was meant to be lived that way yet I was on autopilot and had done little to change the predicament.

Probation was a hybrid between law enforcement and social work. It was a lifestyle embedded in a field of insecurity and back-stabbing. The close friendships and supportive trust I sought to become part of within my life vocation had turned to sand in my hands. I had remained in my box, content with dissatisfaction, afraid of breaking out. Yet here was another Officer, talking about pure life. The two seemed like polar opposites.

Thank you. I said, nodding to the security guard. You are very kind.

He shook my hand, stamped my passport and handed it back to me.

As we walked outside the airport, I had my first breath of Costa Rican air. In the beginning, the purity and humidity was tough to take because it was so different from anything I had ever felt. The air was damp and earthy, circulating in my lungs as if a life of its own possessed the invisible force. My lungs began to adjust as we searched for our final travel companion.

John stood just outside the airport wearing a baseball cap. He was an engineer in his mid-thirties and was easy to spot over the Costa Rican locals. Dana threw her arms around him and introduced us.

I already rented the car and it should be a comfy ride, he said, taking Dana’s suitcase and motioning us with his free arm.

Climbing into a Nissan Pathfinder, we encountered our first roadway experience. Claustrophobic vehicles jammed onto narrow roads as we swerved out and around obstacles. Downtown San Jose resembled a disorganized, Spanish-speaking San Francisco. Pedestrians crossed everywhere to enter shopping and housing structures towering high above the city.

We struggled toward the edge of San Jose and ventured away from the city itself. People sat in the street, kids played on the highway, homeless dogs dodged in and out of traffic. Many of the large cargo trucks moved along at a slow pace, keeping the roadways crowded and inconsistent.

Hills covered with shed-like homes of plastic and metal with dirt floors and barefoot children standing along either side of us. They stared at us from stations of poverty until we broke beyond the outskirts of the city and into the jungle. Thick, damp climate hung in the air and clung to the vehicle. Looming overhead, the jungle resembled oversized house plants, standing fifteen feet above us.

Estimations to our location had us anticipating an approximate four hour drive. In that amount of time we had travelled half the expected distance. Climbing through green, jagged mountains on the rural highway, a shanty restaurant filled with Costa Rican locals stood on the right hand side.

Anyone hungry? Dana asked.

It looks as good a place as any, Mom said. Options are scarce out here. There are so many locals here that it has to be a good sign.

John pulled over, parking the car in a dirt lot. We climbed out of the car, thankful for a chance to stretch our cramped limbs and went into the shanty. Or rather, what could best be described as inside. There were four posts, a ceiling without walls and a small kitchen displaying warm food behind a countertop and several wooden tables with creaky chairs. Standing in line under the tin roof took ten minutes as we awaited our first attempt to communicate in a foreign language.

They made it easy for us, allowing us to point at what we wanted: rice, beans, chicken, watermelon and bottled water. We made it easy for them by ordering five plates of the exact same thing. They loaded our plates so high, each of us were handed two separate plates of food. I felt like we were stealing when they relayed the price of two dollars per person. I was confused by the locals who looked over, frowning as though we were being ripped off.

Two dollars? I asked, amazed at the small cost. Are you sure?

The man nodded and we handed over the money.

How is this possible? I asked Mom.

I don’t know, but I like it, she said.

Shrugging with happy smiles, we carried our plates to the table. The food was delicious. We ate in silence, observing the quaint surroundings. We were strangers in a foreign land and despite my paranoid assumptions; we were safe and had managed to obtain our first meal. Rising from the table to leave, I asked the cashier if there was an available restroom. He shook his head.

No restroom? Now it was me who frowned. Okay.

I told our group the bad news as we climbed back into the vehicle. Lost in the excitement of entering a new country and meeting up with our fifth companion, I had forgotten to relieve myself at the airport. Here I was, more than four hours down the road, already uncomfortable.

Another hour went by. Bouncy roads, sudden stops to avoid the dogs, slow trucks and children combined with my hastily purchased bottled water at lunchtime were a rough set of circumstances. My bladder threatened to explode and paint the inside of the Pathfinder.

Still, there was no place to stop. We were deep in a mountainous jungle. Pulling over and dodging off into that tangle of plants full of wild animals seemed like a bad plan to me. The bottom line was that painting the Pathfinder or not, I was not about to get caught with my pants down in the jungle.

That decision had me paying the price as I watched another forty five minutes tick by at the slowest pace I had ever witnessed in my life. I almost wet my pants not once, but twice before I spotted an outdoor tavern, tucked away down a bumpy dirt road. I leapt out of the car, speaking jumbled Spanish and they pointed to a shed at the end of the bar. My companions purchased drinks as I ducked into the shed.

I laughed, taking inventory: No light, no lid, no seat, no toilet paper, insect carcasses lining the dirty and dingy floor. Even still, this dirty toilet answered my prayers and I almost cried I was so grateful for it. That bathroom cleared my vision a bit and improved my mood. I was able to observe the roughest part of the country without bladder interference: Puerto Limon.

Located on the east side of the country along the coast, Puerto Limon was known to be the cocaine smuggling capital of Costa Rica. Doors and windows held heavy bars surrounded by caged yards secured with thick padlocks. Guards with enormous guns stood outside banks and automated teller machines.

A funeral procession was in full motion on the main thoroughfare. Fifty people followed a set of pallbearers carrying a large white coffin down the center of the lane. A large cemetery on our left was covered in above ground graves.

John turned down a different street to go around the procession before cruising out of the city as fast as the deteriorating road would allow. The rough city was uncharacteristic among the remaining Caribbean coast of palm-lined beaches and villagers carving canoes out of trees with machetes.

As the visions of Puerto Limon left us, so did the luxury of paved roads. Pot holes became more frequent until nothing but a cloud of dirt trailed behind us. We passed through