Language Barriers

Here is what I'm learning about my life so far: Once I declare a certain path, life tends to take me down a different one, all for the same exact goal I had to start off.

So, I haven't fully addressed a lot of different things here - mainly because this is, well, a blog. Not my diary, and not an autobiography. What I have noticed about people, no matter where I go in the world, is that they like to know (and understand) WHY I decided to move to Europe. Or, why I moved to NYC back in the day. Why I uprooted myself to come here. I never really know what answer to give them, because I have at least 5 different ones.

In the end, yes, I moved to Amsterdam because someone said to me "Hey, you should come here and sing more opera!" and then someone else said "Oh and here is a steady job to give you a visa and keep you here". Fine, that was the zero-hour, decision-making reason, and I've told that story many times.

But the real, personal reason: I wanted to see just how much could happen if I left what I knew in the States and made a huge leap to come to Europe. I gave up the reigns of control in NYC (which of course were imaginary), and gave my total faith to the 'crazier' option. There were absolutely no guarantees when I came here. I was not promised success, financial wealth, or that I would survive the depths of darkness that were the winter months. But I had faith that my path had led me here for bigger reasons, and that has been proven true time and time again in the year since.

But how often do we find ourselves tailoring how we tell our stories to people based off of what we think they want to hear? Or based off of how we want to be perceived? I never knew how much I did this until recently, and it's now becoming my personal mission to stop doing that as much as possible.

Over the weekend, I visited my boyfriends' wonderful family in Grimbergen, Belgium, to celebrate a birthday, meet his inspiring Grandmothers, and stumble all over my very amateur French. Bruno is originally from there, which makes him Flemish, and he is constantly astounding me with his ability to swiftly jump from English to French to Dutch (and Flemish) and communicate with pretty much anyone he wants to. A superpower I can only hope to achieve half of in my life - maybe by standing near him a lot I'll succeed through osmosis? 

Bruno, his beautiful Mom and Grandma, in Belgium. 

I therefore struggled a lot this weekend with "how I am perceived." Where I normally would gush thanks to my hosts for letting me stay in their home, feeding me, handing me slippers or a sweater if I got cold, filling my glasses with wine and champagne and just, in general, making me feel like part of their family... I was forced to repeat my basic phrases, desperate for another way of showing gratitude. I couldn't ask all of the questions I wanted to, and found myself catching the topics of conversation about five minutes after the topic had passed, time and time again. (Suddenly laughing out loud at a joke that had been made 15 minutes earlier, though well-intended, can make one seem crazy rather than friendly...) 

I eventually gave up on 'seeming' anything and decided to let it go. But it showed me just how often I am conscious of how others might think of me. How often I talk about certain things so that I 'come across' strong, or intelligent, or interesting, or successful, or [insert personal goal here]. 

Bruno, being not only multi-lingual but also quite wise, reminded me throughout the weekend that I cannot expect perfection of myself, and that people can tell a lot about each other despite the language barriers. I know this is true because I often gain a similar sense of who a person is at heart before even exchanging words - but it is so difficult to remember that when you yourself feel potentially judged. But to step outside of my insecure, self-conscious little bubble is a little like giving up the reigns of 'control.' It's scary and requires that I have a lot more faith in myself than I allow myself to have sometimes. 

Life here is filled with challenges I didn't even see coming - but the reward is in standing at the point I am at right now and looking down at the view: learning (and speaking) new languages, singing in foreign places I never anticipated singing in, falling in love with someone I would not have met if I hadn't realllyyy moved past my life in New York, my 'comfort zone' and my control, and so many more. No matter what story I tell people about why and how I moved to the Netherlands, I do know that the risk was ultimately far more rewarding than staying put would have been. 

Anyway, today I investigate classes in Dutch for the fall ;), and am setting a personal goal to stop the self-criticism. The barriers seem to always be imaginary, or put there by myself.