Unlike many expats moving to a foreign country, I have several advantages. First off: I can speak the language. Sure, my grammar isn’t perfect and my vocabulary isn’t that diverse, but I can participate in and have conversations with others, properly express my feelings, thoughts, and opinions, get help when necessary, and even try to help others. I can follow most conversations around me, so long as it isn’t too loud and too many things aren’t happening simultaneously, or there isn’t a heavy use of dialect or slang.
Second, I am engaged to a Norwegian. I live with him. He can help explain to me the little intricate details of things that I can’t understand. He bridges the gap between the USA and Norway for me. He also can comfort me when I am overwhelmed, listen to me when I am stressed, and reassure me when I am down. He is my home.
Third, I have his family and his friends. It is the most wonderful thing to be so welcomed by people. His family is becoming my family, and his friends are becoming mine. Sure, I will make friends of my own here as well– and no one can replace my own family– but I have stepped into an already built support system.
However, a few days in, everything still seems more difficult. I had signed up for a gym membership online to the SATS near my apartment, and I had to go pick up my membership card. For some reason, this felt intimidating to me. Suddenly, I felt inexplicably alone and on my own. And because I can speak some Norwegian, I feel even more pressure to not resort to speaking English. In my mind, I have built everything up as though if, for some reason, I have to speak English or ask for help or clarification, I am some sort of failure– which is completely untrue, of course. So I went to get the card and– shocking– everything went fine.
Things didn’t always go fine today, though. On my way to the gym to pick up the membership card, I brought the 2 large recycling bags full of cans and bottles to the machine to “pant” (recycle at machines,) and just as I got near the door to the store, the bottom of the bag ripped and bottles flew everywhere. People outside turned to look at me and it felt like a horrible scene from a teen movie where everyone is suddenly looking at the main character who did something inexplicably stupid. My embarrassment was overwhelming, and I scrambled to stick all of the bottles that had rolled away into the tote bags I had taken for use at the grocery. Later, when I went to pick up my membership card at the gym, I was covered in the smell of beer.
A woman in the grocery store in a wheelchair also tried to ask me for help getting something in a place she had no access to, and though I did attempt to help her, she was clearly asking for something that I had no idea what it was. Despite my explaining that I didn’t understand her and wasn’t completely fluent in Norwegian, I still felt like a helpless jerk when she went to go ask someone else.