The Language I Wasn’t Born to Speak

Unspoken Conversations, No.2

There’s a silence no one warns you about when you move to a new country.
It’s not just about missing family or foods you can’t find.
It’s the realization that your voice—your authentic voice—was never fully rooted in the language you were born into.

I was born to speak Bosnian and Slovenian. They shaped my childhood, my first friendships, my early memories. But even as a child, I felt it—a quiet dissonance. I understood the words, but not the world they built.

When people spoke around me, I grasped the surface of what they said. But deeper down, I was lost. It was as if the sentences floated above my head, and I was standing somewhere else entirely. Even when I spoke Slovenian, it didn’t sound like me. It sounded like a version I was trying to wear, but it never quite fit.

I struggled with vocabulary. Not because I wasn't smart, but because something inside me whispered, You won’t need this. You’re meant to speak something else.

At the time, I didn’t understand it. It just made me feel frustrated. Like there was a world inside me I couldn’t bring out—no matter how many words I tried to learn.

Years later, when I finally stepped out of Slovenia and into a new life abroad, I felt something unexpected: Freedom.

When I began speaking English more regularly, it felt like my spirit finally exhaled. It was like finding a rhythm I didn't have to force. English wasn't perfect—it still isn’t—but it permitted me to express parts of myself that had been waiting, silently, for decades.

The day I left Slovenia, I knew it wasn’t just a move across borders. It was a move across languages. Across selves. I chose, consciously, to live—and to speak—differently.

I still love Slovenian. When I hear it now, it sounds beautifully poetic—like a song from a dream I once lived. But I don’t use it often. It belongs to another version of me, a tender one, but not the one who stands here today.

If you're standing somewhere right now, feeling like your true voice is still waiting to be heard, I see you. You are not less.
You are simply growing into a language your true you already knows.

This journey of finding the language of my soul, beyond words, is the heart behind my upcoming collection, Connection. Each painting speaks where words once failed.