She was telling me to wait on the phone: "I will regulate the darkness."
She meant: "I need to adjust the light."
He was telling me why he had to see an ex-girlfriend again, after a bad break-up: "I have to see her because I left my clock at her apartment."
I actually replied: "Why not get a new one? It can't be that expensive!"
He meant: He had left his watch.
He was telling me about how he expressed his vacation preferences to his wife: "I told her to fly away."
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
English Trainer Chronicles: Lost in translation
She was telling me to wait on the phone: "I will regulate the darkness."
She meant: "I need to adjust the light."
He was telling me why he had to see an ex-girlfriend again, after a bad break-up: "I have to see her because I left my clock at her apartment."
I actually replied: "Why not get a new one? It can't be that expensive!"
He meant: He had left his watch.
He was telling me about how he expressed his vacation preferences to his wife: "I told her to fly away."
She meant: "I need to adjust the light."
He was telling me why he had to see an ex-girlfriend again, after a bad break-up: "I have to see her because I left my clock at her apartment."
I actually replied: "Why not get a new one? It can't be that expensive!"
He meant: He had left his watch.
He was telling me about how he expressed his vacation preferences to his wife: "I told her to fly away."
"The world will crush you," he said
Someone told me I was too sensitive; I let too many things affect me, or hurt me. It's funny, because it is both true and untrue. I am tough where it matters, I think, and soft where I allow myself to be.
If I am deceived, it is because I choose to trust. This choice is not easy to come by; it takes a long time and careful thought. I don't see why that is a weakness, because the easy way is just to doubt and see the more apparent worst in people. I choose to see the best in them, because I want to believe that no matter how horrid I get--and I have been really horrid--someone will choose to see the best in me as well.
If I have long spaces of sadness or hurt, say, out of a failed romance, it is because I do love deeply and it takes me a long time to heal. But when I do heal, and the person is worth loving, the love evolves, and it will always, always be there. I know no other way to love; I want no other way either, because I want to believe I will be loved in exactly the same way I can.
If I may not "have fun" like normal people, or if Saturday nights find me home, or I don't risk putting myself out there for the world to pluck, well. I have no answer, except that I have little patience for shallow relationships and other such inanities, and if I give you the time of day, you can bet that you can freely ask for my all (except money, criminal activities, immoral acts, LOL) because I'm just all or nothing that way. And I know for a fact, and from experience, you don't find real things in that great "out there." I know, because I've been there.
(So, okay, maybe I have to work on some other there. But here could work just as well, true?)
I get hurt, because I care. Believe me, it's better that way. And if the world will crush me, who really, really just wants to be a harmless burst of joy, then boo. I'm still not going to stop caring, and thus, I'm not going to stop risking hurting.
If I am deceived, it is because I choose to trust. This choice is not easy to come by; it takes a long time and careful thought. I don't see why that is a weakness, because the easy way is just to doubt and see the more apparent worst in people. I choose to see the best in them, because I want to believe that no matter how horrid I get--and I have been really horrid--someone will choose to see the best in me as well.
If I have long spaces of sadness or hurt, say, out of a failed romance, it is because I do love deeply and it takes me a long time to heal. But when I do heal, and the person is worth loving, the love evolves, and it will always, always be there. I know no other way to love; I want no other way either, because I want to believe I will be loved in exactly the same way I can.
If I may not "have fun" like normal people, or if Saturday nights find me home, or I don't risk putting myself out there for the world to pluck, well. I have no answer, except that I have little patience for shallow relationships and other such inanities, and if I give you the time of day, you can bet that you can freely ask for my all (except money, criminal activities, immoral acts, LOL) because I'm just all or nothing that way. And I know for a fact, and from experience, you don't find real things in that great "out there." I know, because I've been there.
(So, okay, maybe I have to work on some other there. But here could work just as well, true?)
I get hurt, because I care. Believe me, it's better that way. And if the world will crush me, who really, really just wants to be a harmless burst of joy, then boo. I'm still not going to stop caring, and thus, I'm not going to stop risking hurting.