As I was heading into Douglas (the capital city of the Isle of Man – where I live) with my husband, Joe. I watched as the school children piled into the school on their first day back after the summer. What was I doing?! Have I made a huge mistake? I should be walking into that school, right behind them. Set up at my old desk and wait for my student to walk through the door on her first day in 6th form. But no, we were driving past the school. I was heading to work from the Santander Work Cafe.
Almost as soon as that thought entered my head, I received an email. ‘CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR FIRST ETSY ORDER!’. I couldn’t believe it! I quickly fumbled through my emails and opened it up. Well, would you look at that. My first ever order. I clicked into the order to see where it was going… JAPAN?! I couldn’t believe it! I was excited but panicked at the same time. Japanese braille was my 3-year plan, not my 1-day plan!
And yes – Japanese braille is a thing. There is approx. 142 different braille codes in the world, to date. How incredible is that? I can’t imagine I will learn every single one…
I rang my friend whose wife is from Japan and asked if they could help me, to see if Google Translate was accurate, and it turns out it is! I dropped the customer a message in both English and Japanese to see what they wanted to have brailled inside their card. I waited for a response… I never did get a response, so the only thing I could do was braille the front of the card in English braille and then leave it blank. Hopefully, they are happy with their order when it arrives…
The crazy thing about this is that I always say ‘I left my heart in Tokyo!’ as that is where we had our honeymoon. Fancy that being the first order I get. And fancy it being after 30 seconds of me doubting all of my life choices to date. It felt like a little sign from the universe to tell me to never give up and that it was the right choice.
Tasha