July 6, 2022: Stranger in a Strange Land
Occasionally, for no real reason, a thought will cross my mind. It generally crosses my mind in capital letters, and is accompanied by the voice in my head (I know not everyone does this, thinks with a voice in their head, but lots of people do and I’m one of them*) sort of shrieking and running in circles with its hands waving around in the air. The thought is this:
“What the f*** am I doing?”
This thought usually comes in relation to some element of culture shock. I’ll be reading or writing or sipping my glass of wine and I’ll get a little lost in thought and start looking around, and my eyes will land on an ad, which is one of those things that, at least in the 21st century, is common amongst us all. The ads are always the same, really. But the language changes. It's the same fonts, the same designs, but the words, the letters themselves, are all different. Behind me two men are talking, but their words don’t make any sense. Human voices, but the sounds are utterly meaningless. Suddenly, I feel utterly alien, and utterly isolated, and utterly alone. Rationally, I know that many of the people around me probably do speak english, and if I needed to, we could communicate. But I also understand the reality that there could be no one here who speaks english. There’s certainly no signs here translated into English. No menu at the bar with English subscript. If something goes wrong, if I miss my train, I don’t know for sure that I would be able to figure it out. It shakes my confidence, and there’s that thought: “Seriously. What the f*** am I doing?”
But the thing is, I’m here. I can’t click my heels three times and wake up in my bed at home. I could, certainly, figure out a way to get home, but it would take days, and be a massive hassle, and it would mean giving up, which I’m not all that good at. It would mean giving up on spectacular views, and amazing cities, and new experiences, and the opportunity to see places that I’ve stared at in books and on maps and dreamed of visiting. It would mean saying I didn’t think I was strong enough to handle it, when I know I am. It would mean starting over, again, just when I’m starting down the path I really want to be on. I don’t have all the answers, and sometimes I feel really, massively afraid. Fear, I think, is an indication you’re on the right track. Not always, obviously. If you’re afraid to go home, afraid to tell someone close to you that you’re hurting, afraid where you should feel safe, then something is very wrong. But if we’re never afraid, then we never grow. Fear often means a challenge. I want to challenge myself. I want to be here. And I know I’m where I’m meant to be because sometimes that fear hits me, and I think “What the f*** am I doing?”
And then I think, “Something crazy. Something brilliant. Something unpredictable and frightening and new. How wonderful. How lucky am I?”
*Totally unrelated, but I think someone should do a study on whether there is a correlation between how much someone reads as a child and whether they think with a voice in their head or not. I have a theory that reading trains the brain to think this way, because most middle-grade and young-adult books are written in first person.