1. I cry a lot while doing this work. It isn’t something I can control. Every time I think I have become hardened to these stories, a moment, an expression, a detail will throw me off the scaffolding of language, away from the structural safety of its grammar and rules and headlong into the wilderness beyond. There is always something unexpected, unimagined, no matter how used to the narrative of loss and displacement and violence I think I have become.

      I found this part particularly beautiful because the writer perfectly expresses her emotions. She describes exactly how she feels and what triggers those emotions, which makes her words so powerful. The part where she says that no matter how used she becomes to the violence and that there is always something unexpected happens that makes her feel the pain all over again really touched me. Shows how humans will always be affected from violence and they will never completely get used to it. It also shows how much empathetic she is and how these stories continue to affect her while she translates no matter how much she got exposed to.

2. There are no words strong enough to hold the reality of war.

I think this sentence is very meaningful. It expresses how war is much bigger than what any words can describe. Words can describe events but they can never truly express fear and pain that people experience during war. I relate to this deeply as a psychology student because I’ve learned how difficult it is for people who experience trauma to explain what they went through. Sometimes the pain is so overwhelming that even they can’t fully understand how deeply it has affected them.

3. But once I had the words translated, I found that no one really wanted to hear them, be near them. They were light in English, yes, but also cumbersome and huge. Giant styrofoam shapes. When I carried them with me into the classroom or into the home of new friends, I had to struggle to fit them through the door. Their size dwarfed me, crowded me out; everyone stared.                                               

We known that sharing experiences and trauma can often help in healing however, in this part the writer feels even more isolated after expressing. why does opening up about pain sometimes push people away instead of bringing them closer? Is it because people feel uncomfortable facing emotions they can’t fix?