Like a Child

This is the other part of the first month of my life. This is the language part, the feeling "like a child" part. As an adult, I don't think anyone can feel as small as living in a different country trying to learn a new language. This feeling was not something I expected. Even though I studied Italian for two years before I came here. I felt like I was learning the language for the first time. Everyone spoke so fast, just like we do in English of course, but that I can understand, Italian not so much. Seriously, if I didn't have such an immense passion for this language, I would have given up a long time ago. The first week, after not speaking any Italian for a whole summer, my mind was so rusty. I literally had to get up the courage to form one sentence which took about two minutes. But the great thing about being terrible at something in the beginning is watching immediate rapid improvement. After about a week I could form sentences in half the time. A week after that I could form new very short and simple sentences on the fly. However while this doesn't sound so bad, let me tell you how bad it actually was. Imagine for one second that when you sit at the table to eat dinner with a group of people, you have all of these thoughts but you are not allowed, worse, not even capable of communicating. If you want to ask for someone to pass a dish on the table to you, you can't because you don't even know how to say "pass." So what do you do, just grab the plate impolitely? Yes, more or less or like a child, point. Or if the water in the shower is cold, you can't even ask how or when it gets hot, or if there is no toliet paper, ummm, how do you ask for that? And when someone explains this to you, you can't even understand what they are saying. Try living in that world. It was the most humbling and frustrating experience of my life. I now completely understand why two years old cry when they want something like a bottle and they can't get it, because they can't communicate. This is how I felt about 5 times a day. This wanting to cry feeling, the rest of the time was just a subtle, "how bad am I really?" feeling. Let me tell you this, without communication, we are like walking caged beings. We have all of these thoughts, but we can't get them out. I literally felt the most frustrated and joyful I have ever felt in my life during this time time. I was in this amazingly beautiful Italian city that was better than I had dreamed, but I couldn't speak. It was from this experience that I learned the meaning of self control. I could either let myself feel and tell myself how stupid I was for not remembering how to say or ask for something OR I could say to myself, "It's ok, everyone is like this at first with anything and even though I really don't know how, I guess, surely it must get better. " I'll say the latter didn't always win each battle, but it certainly did in the end. For one of the first times in my life I learned the importance of having control over your thoughts. You become what you let yourself become. You become what you let yourself believe is possible. I can't tell you how many times I prayed to know that it just might be possible to get better. And deep down I just had to have faith that it would. I had to tell myself it was possible, and then it happened. Not to say that I'm fluent now, but I'm definitely conversational and can ask for anything I want even if I don't know the word for it on the fly. It is the best feeling in the world to feel this sense of accomplishment, because I have never struggled so much with a task in my life. I feel like after this I have learned the patience to do almost anything. Learning a language taught me to be patient with my progress as a singer, even though I'm not singing here. It taught me to never give up on myself- cliche I know, but true. I rediscovered the joy of struggle and the reason for patience- and that has made all the difference.