by Sabine Doods
Finally, the portal has openend and I step over the threshold. Over my shoulder, the familiar, well known slowly disappears, leaving me in a place, I have never been before. Or rather, I had been to similar places, but many years have passed since. And I am unsure whether I am still up to it.
Being young and for sure feeling bolder than now, I set out to conquer a new realm. Leaving security behind, I lept into an exciting world, filled with another language. School and university couldn´t fill the void inside me. I wanted to breathe, dream and think in English. And so I went to Great Britain and stayed there for four years. I absorbed the language and it came easily to me. Words formed without thinking.
Speaking a language, that was not my mother tongue, did many things to me. Some things were easier as there was more distance. Saying `I love you` for example felt less intimate than the German version. Others were hard. Like getting the joke some native speaker was telling at a pub. The nuances, the playing with words. Still, I felt at home.
Many years have passed since, I have left the country more than 20 years ago. 20 years, which brought me back to breathing, dreaming and thinking in German again. Still finding it quite easy to understand but getting rusty when saying something in English.
And there I am, looking back at the portal. I check, and at least my followers are still there. Many new faces and storys, too, I want to explore and get to know. Feeling bold and brave as I used to so many years ago, when I left to live abroad for a while, I set my sails to navigate through the English version of Story.One.
Thanks very much for making that possible!
© Sabine Doods 2021-04-22