Mi otra familia...

Well, I would like to be asleep right now but I am visiting mi otra familia.  That would be my husband's family. I arrived safely in Orlando and now I am catching up on my blog posts.  This will be a quick one (at least compared to the novels I normally right).

There are times when I am with my husband's family that I feel right at home, like this is where I am supposed to be.  I understand Spanish perfectly, I don't need anyone to translate a damn thing.  The laughter, the smell of the food, the celebrations, all of these things make me feel like home.  They show me what a family is all about.  What a family should look like.  How a family should function.  How I would like my family to be.  I use to say that I must have spoken Spanish in a past life because the language and the culture just spoke to me and came so easily when I began to learn it.  I remember my love affair with the language.  So much to the  point where I knew I would teach my children Spanish (I never anticipated it would be the language of their father).  I still feel that way.

And then there are times when I am so lost in translation I question my English!  I kinda panic.  What are they saying?  What are they talking about?  How should I respond?  What they hell does that mean?  Wait, I missed that one word, what is an encrucijada? Where the hell is Yelisa and Luis when I need them!!!!  I freak out.  I second guess my skills.  I don't speak enough with my husband.  I tune out both intentionally and unintentionally and if I tune out for too long, it becomes way too hard to tune back in.  I struggle.  I still have that fear of native speakers rejecting me.  Stronger than that is my perfectionism and ego in my head saying, "wait, don't say that, it could be wrong" or outright denying my intuition when I know the right thing to say.  Oh, and let's not get into conjugation and politeness.  The walls close in on me and I want to take the first plane back to the States!

I am torn between two worlds.  A world that seems like the world I should have known all my life and want to know for the rest of my life and a world that says, hey, get real.  All in all, I love my other family.  I want to be around them.  I wish I could express to them how I feel about them.  They have accepted me with open arms and a lot of love.  I am so grateful and blessed to have acquired them in my life.  They have never judged my butchering of their language, at least not to my face.  I hope that at least times when I can't find the right words to say they can at least feel what I want to express.  That they could at least see through my actions how honored I feel to be apart of their family.  Well, at least I hope they at least see my as family.

Well, I am much ready to sleep.  Maybe I will entertain you one day with an all Spanish blog.

Peace, love and soul!