Not Lost in Translation
I have been visiting a lot of churches lately. It is hard not to when you are traveling around Europe. They are huge, quiet, and usually right in the middle of a busy city. Outside those thick wooden doors, my brain is constantly working. I use my English skills to get by, which works fine most of the time. But I also try to use my German, and that is a completely different story. It is actually quite funny. I can stand in a coffee shop or a train station and understand almost everything people are saying to me. My brain translates their German perfectly well. I know exactly what they are asking. But the moment I open my mouth to reply, I completely fumble. I'm blank. I can barely put together more than a few basic sentences. If a cashier asks me a simple follow-up question, I panic. I just nod, smile awkwardly, say a broken German word, and walk away hoping (overthinking!) I made sense. Sometimes it is exhausting to constantly translate your life and pretend you know what you are ...