My first words in English

If you have read any of my stories, you have probably seen my ways of putting a long sentence to say something when it could had been 3–5 words. This is what happens to us that are immigrants. When we don’t know the language. When we come from a country where the root language is Latin, let me tell you, we write many words just to say I love you. It’s different. Syntax has a whole new meaning. Many immigrants would agree to what I am saying. In English, one single word means many things, that is confusing right there for anyone who does not speak the language. To choose words that would align to what we really mean, sometimes is not easy and we might sound like kids or idiots in the worst case scenario.

When I first arrived to the US I was 21 years old. I had finished accounting school in Mexico and my dream was to be in Spain, go to the university there and I remember I wanted to be a great writer, in Spanish. I had written three plays in school, I had acted, directed and produced them. I had won national spelling contests and also a regional poetry competition. I had an ego of a super star…LOL…I did. One of the things I always knew since I remember is that I would be a writer. For some reason I cannot explain how but poetry came as my first way of communication. And I was very prolific writing poetry. It seems to me that I was too open to all the existing feelings in the universe. If I felt sad because someone did not like me in school, I would write a poem. Sad as hell, but it was so easy. I wrote in journals all my life because it was easy to write my emotions than to tell them to anyone. I never felt close to anyone to begin with. I went to school with the label of being the “nerd” the “weird”, the “lonely”. Yes, I was a straight A student, but for me school was my life. When I was home, it was dark. I did not have what I needed and words and books were my saviors.

An issue I always have is my mind all over the places at once. I want to come back to the tittle of my story today. English language is confusing. When I first arrived to the country, I remember in the airport seeing the word “exit” everywhere. That lifted my spirit right away because after leaving my homeland, being sad and crying the whole trip, the word “exit” translated in my brain as “success”. In Spanish, “exito” means “success”, so right away I thought this was the right place to be. Everywhere I turned it said “exit”…wow, what a fantastic welcome for someone like me. When I saw my dad picking me up I told him how nice this country was for encouraging people to…