My Ranting

Have you ever feel like an alien when you're among your close ones? At least, I feel it many times. The weird thing is that the feeling comes when I'm at my PIL's place. Like I've mentioned before, it's probably because of the language barrier I have.
Well, hubby said that I've made (very significant) progress in learning the language (and I feel the same way!). However, I don't feel that I'm progressing at all when I'm with them.

Often MIL speaks to me with some high-level words that I always lost in translation. I fail to understand her many times and it really discourages me. When I need to understand something, I normally ask the question in English to hubby. Sometimes we speak English too when we're there. However, it seems that she dislikes it. She keeps telling me (and hubby, too) that we should speak Finnish more. Well, I've tried my best and I'm still trying! But, please..don't push me, too much! And if my Finnish is still like this now, it doesn't mean that I've been lazy in learning the language because I'm not! It takes time for me to be fluent as I'm no longer young. I hate to learn something under somebody's pressure! Let me enjoy the process of learning itself. Is it my fault that I can't meet her expectation? Or is it her fault that she expects too much from me?

I know for sure that she's such a good MIL and that she loves me. One day she was asking me whether I'd like to talk to her on the phone, just for some women's talks. Well, I don't know what to answer since it's hard for me to talk to her. How can I talk about something personal to somebody whom I always have the fear that I may not be able to understand him/her when somebody talks to me? How would I know that somebody will not condemn nor criticize me when I speak my mind? Moreover, I still can't find any topics in common to speak to her. I'm just somehow afraid that her comments would discourage me when I have to speak to her. I know that you can never always agree with somebody's opinion, but when I need to pour out my feelings from my heart, I need somebody's approval. I hate it so much when I'm telling somebody what my heart really feels, then he/she is against me or criticize me, instead of trying to understand where I'm coming from. If I want to speak my mind to somebody, I need to make sure that he/she can understand me and will not discourage me. This thing reminds me about somebody in the past. Somebody to whom I used to pour out all my heart's feelings without the fear of being confronted. Well, this person didn't always agree with me, but at least this person knows how to tell this person's disagreement without insulting me at all. I felt so comfortable to speak my mind to this person since I knew that this person has no heart to condemn me and he somehow could understand me much better than any other person I've known.

Oh well...I just have to move on and be strong. I just need to learn to understand other people's perspective and try not to get insulted easily. Just like my mum always says, "Big girls don't cry."