i immediately feel this as a pang of the once-wanted (fluency), what could've been (an elsewhere). there are a few places in my life i've thought about moving to. ireland, as a young teenager; montréal, a few years later. always self-conscious about my french though, ever since a friend told me it was painful to listen to my accent. back then, that felt incredibly cutting. now, though? so what. so i'm never going to sound like a natural. good enough is good enough. i speak french like an anglo because that's what i am.
i couldn't help but feel it as a pang of the once-wanted, but also of a kind of happiness. incredible what the body remembers, what returns with the smallest prompt. maybe my french wasn't all that bad; perhaps the montréal of my teenage years wasn't a distant dream after all.