No Longer There
An expat story on how a third language came to alter my previous ones. To lose one’s country is also to lose one’s language a little bit.
As I begin to write this article, on paper on my desk, I find myself struggling to find the words in English. Instead, at the back of my head, there is another language fighting to come to the surface. A small, subtle light at the other end of the tunnel, calling me, pulling me to go in another direction.
What is this desire to write in another language, which is neither my mother tongue, nor my second language? What’s more, why do words seem to have become so entangled in my mind? Why do I, all of a sudden, after years of speaking, writing and using English daily, now feel useless with it, a beginner all over again? Should I simply give in and make way for Italian in my writings? The only problem is, of course, my poor master of it.
Never before had I experienced such brain fog as I am experiencing now that Italian came into my life. Maybe the answer lies in the fact that I was very young when I started learning English. So much that I can hardly remember my life without not being able to understand and speak English. Italian, conversely, I learned it as an adult, “per forza”, come si dice, by force, after moving to Italy rather…
