The Sweetness and the Steak

You know, dear readers, it's kind of like when someone gives me a giant cake. I eat it for a day, then another day, and it just doesn't seem to end. The first few bites? Oh, they were amazing! I wanted another piece, and another, and another. But then, it starts getting… harder. Really hard. I can’t quite shove it in anymore. Suddenly, all I want is a plain old sandwich with some baloney, or maybe a steak, you know, the kind that’s still a little red inside.

It’s like that with my words, too. When I used to write mostly in Russian, deciding to write in English felt special, like a secret, a surprise. It was the exception, the little sparkle that made things interesting. But now? It’s the other way around. English is the everyday, the delicious, overwhelming cake. And sometimes, I really miss the simple, honest taste of baloney.

This feeling, this flip-flopping inside, it’s a funny thing. It’s like there are two of me, or maybe more, all wanting different things. One part loves the new, the shiny, the complex. It dives into a big English puzzle, all those tricky sounds and spellings, and feels so smart when it figures it out. It’s like the first bite of that giant cake, exciting and full of possibility.

But then there’s the other part. The part that remembers the comfort of the familiar. The part that knows just how to make a perfect Russian sentence sing. It’s the part that, after eating too much fancy cake, yearns for the simple, satisfying weight of a good, plain meal. It’s not that it doesn’t like cake anymore, it’s just that sometimes, a perfectly straightforward baloney sandwich hits the spot in a way cake just can’t, no matter how many layers it has.

It’s like a habit, this liking for what’s easy, what’s known. Russian is my cozy blanket. It wraps me up, warm and familiar. English is this exciting adventure, a new playground with strange rules. And while I love the adventure, and I’m getting really good at climbing the swings and sliding down the slide, sometimes, just sometimes, I want to go back to my quiet room with my familiar toys.

The hard part, I think, is learning to enjoy both without feeling guilty. It’s okay to want the sophisticated language, the challenging words, the thrill of expressing a complicated thought. But it’s also okay to want the simple comfort of the language that feels like home. It’s a constant dance, this duality. A little bit of wanting the spectacular, and a little bit of craving the ordinary. And maybe, just maybe, the real magic isn’t in choosing one over the other, but in learning to savor both the sweetness of the cake and the satisfying bite of the steak.

Stephaniia

https://t.me/stefanias_world