Adjectives

Adjectives are dashing, clever and powerful. They give color and texture to otherwise two dimensional descriptions. Some experiences are so large, so extreme that the adjective that best suits them should be explosive and exciting; a word so huge and profound that it shakes your very foundations. When that situation arrives however, generally the word is simple short and somewhat anticlimactic.

The best example of this is the adjective that best describes moving to a new country on your own. Moving to a new country is hard. Not difficult. Difficult is a weak and passive word. Difficult fades and stumbles, passing away in ignominy without a second thought.

Leaving everything and everyone behind and starting over in a place where the language is the somewhat the same but everything else is different right down to the rules of social engagement, is hard. Hard in a way that is said from the diaphragm and felt through the shoulders. Hard in a way that leaves a catch in your throat that never quite goes away. Hard in a way that keeps going, untiringly, unceasingly through pleasure and pain alike. Through self discovery, occasional overwhelming loneliness, success, failure and triumph it is hard. Not always bad, not always good but always hard. Really really hard.

And when things are hard all the time it’s tiring, even defeating. But if you keep going and keep going right along with the hard at some point the realization occurs that while it isn’t any less hard maybe you have become just a little stronger.