Learning a Foreign Language Taught Me a Beautiful Lesson About Life
Some challenges can only be met when you learn how to relinquish control
My expat cohort competed over fluency, and for a time, I wore the crown.
The group contained a hodgepodge of personalities. There was a frat kid, there was a teacher, there was a computer programmer. Others came and went but the nucleus remained.
The group also contained a hodgepodge of maturity levels. We had a preschooler, a grad student, a retiree, and a baby — all in adult bodies. We accepted each other because we were all expats and that made us the same.
We marched together through a wet city. The reflection of traffic lights bathed the streets in glistening green, yellow, and red. We pranced to the sound of music in the darkness on our way to playing various games of chance.
Life is a game of chance.
I carried the cards and the poker chips in a satchel. Lady Luck smiled at me often. She winked. When she laughed, it was sometimes with me, sometimes at me.
Americans don’t speak foreign languages
People used to ask, “Where are you from?”
