This past 9 months have been so many things, but happy, wild, carefree, is not any of the things. When I got back from the whirlwind of a trip in Ireland, Scotland, Denmark, Faroe Islands, and Iceland where my heart soared every day, I thought it would be enough to tide me over for the 9 month trudge through learning a language. I could’t have been more wrong.

I am just days away from the big test and I am more unsure of myself and my future, especially now at the end of all this. I am not entirely certain that I fully understand and have learned this language, and what is even more unsettling is that I am not sure that I want to.

Have you ever felt that sometimes you put so much into something, give up so much in order to make something a reality, just to realize that not only is it not something you want at all, but in the end the outcome has no bearing on your future and the path and direction you now wish to head in?

I’m really grateful to have been given the oppurtunity to learn a foreign language. If you would have asked me a couple years ago how much I wanted to learn a foreign language, I would have told you it was at the top of the list of a long list of priorities that I wanted to focus on. Now I’m not so sure, and my future job has a small bit of bearing on whether I understand this language, but not a large enough amount for me to be truly connived that it was worth all the agony and drama.

Maybe, instead of agonizing any longer it’s finally time to throw in the towel. I want to be able to provide a duel language household to my future children if that is in the cards for me, but as I still sit here and struggle with the same thing from the last post, I am finding it more difficult to put my head down and continue the trudge. Last night around 2am, yes, this is giving me so much stress I now have some form of insomnia, I realized that there is not much more I can do.

I mean, I try to learn and get frustrated and stress and stop, then repeat. and again. and again. I am 2 days away from the thing that can end my suffering and also prolong it, and it is nerve-racking. I think it’s time to admit the fact that you can cram for many different types of tests, but maybe not one where you are required to know an entire language.

That’s where I’m at right now in this really hopeless spot, where my stomach is constantly in knots and cramping, where my hands are always shaking as if I have done something wrong, where I just lay in bed at night with stress migraines, wtf, when did that start?

This is all so dramatic when I look back over it, but it is also the truth. We all see the world through a different lens and the lenses can change at a moments notice. Over the past few months I have stopped seeing all of the bright and beautiful colors through the lens I usually wear. I hope that at the end of this, pass or fail, I can get my old lenses back. I am really looking forward to it.

This article appeared first on The Cassey Excursion.