I Love Who We Are

Imagine You Speak a Language

by T'Vonn

Imagine you speak a language. That’s really nothing special. Everyone speaks a language, of course. Okay. Cool. So you start trying to communicate, and that’s when you discover that other people around you speak another language. Sure, that’s cool too. Different people speak differently. That’s kind of something you already know, only you’ve only been alive for a couple years at this point so maybe you don’t quite know you know. You know? Okay, so eventually you trial and error your way into a sort of bilingualism, and you’re kind of figuring out how the things around you work, and you’re maybe stumbling a little, but that’s kind of expected, since you are still pretty new at this. Anyway, you eventually gain a little bit of confidence, and you get really excited about something or another, and you slip back into your native language and express your most genuine feelings. And people laugh at you. Dicks. Okay, so those guys aren’t nice. So you go somewhere else and do it again, and again, and oh no. Oh no oh no oh no no no no. Fuck. Shit. Is it you? Okay. Fine. Okay. So that’s bad. You shouldn’t do that. Keep a hold on yourself here. It’s fine. You can kind of speak that other, more common language, so you’ll just have to remember to only do that from now on. Maybe you can salvage this. But at this point someone’s probably noticed you’re struggling. So they take you to see a linguist. And they tell you about languages. Which on some level you kind of already knew about, but it turns out they gave a name to yours, which is new, so now you’ve got a box to put that in. Alright. Something to point to. That might help. But then they start talking about special second language learner classes and student aides and extra speech therapy and you get a feeling of utter dread and you tell them that actually, no, you’re perfectly bilingual, thanks, you can manage it on your own, no really, thanks for the offer though. And they seem to accept that. Okay. Crisis averted. Phew. You already torpedoed your social life with that whole genuine feelings stunt, you CANNOT afford this. And besides, you just figured out that the reason you’re so good at that one subject in school is that it actually puts certain things in similar terms to your native language, so it’s really pretty easy for you to instinctually figure out. So you’ve got that going for you. Things might be looking up, actually. Okay, people don’t seem to like that either. But adults think it’s good so that’s what you’re going with as your big positive quality. And then one day you get excited about something you’re interested in. But this time you remember you’re supposed to speak the right language anyway, so it looks like plain sailing. And then you get to it. You’re trying to explain the absolute crux of it, the reason you’re so interested, what makes it such an engrossing subject. And words are failing you. You’re so so so so close. But it’s not there. But wait, suddenly it is there. You saved the whole interaction! You kick ass. Okay, so you go to say it, but at the last moment, you realize the words you’re about to say are in your native language. But you can’t say that. You can’t. You know what happens. But it’s right there. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. You try one last time to come up with the words in the right language, the correct language, the only sane language, the one you worked so hard on. But you can’t. You falter. You fucked it all up. Every time. Why do you even bother? Okay, okay, water under the bridge, quit obsessing, just move on. Hey, you actually managed to find something that works a little better! None of the people you just met are really speaking your language, but you get the impression that some of them can, and in any case, all of them seem to be bilingual like you, so you’re all kind of on the same playing field of awkwardness and inability to translate the thoughts in your head to the right words from your mouth. And all of you seem to understand this, so for the first time, you can really, truly, kind of make it work. It isn’t perfectly natural, but at this point you figure nothing really is. You bear with their idiosyncracies for a while, and that’s fine, because you know you have more than a few of your own, and upbraiding any of them on it would be the most heainous form of betrayal given how everyone else already treats them. And eventually some of those little idiosyncracies turn out to be actually pretty major, and some of their beliefs and behaviors are pretty out there, but you deal with it as long as you can because this almost kind of works and at least you’re not hopelessly outclassed here. But eventually you just can’t. And by this point you’re approaching what a lot of people like to call the real world, and you figure you can make a shot at independence, so you try that even if it means you wind up alone because you’re too broken even for the people no one likes. And then one day you’re in some niche little internet space that you spend a lot of your time on because you can’t maintain an actual social life, and you hear something you don’t expect. It’s your language, but this time it’s coming from someone else. And you brace for the laughs and cringe a little inside at the secondhand embarrassment you’re about to experience. But the laughs don’t come. Huh. Even your little freak group from high school would have regarded this as a shameful but ultimately excusable slip at best. So you take a closer look. And it turns out there’s actually a fairly large group here, and not all of them are speaking your language, and that’s a little disappointing at first, but you dive in anyway because you’re kind of used to settling at this point and you don’t have much to lose anyway. Like always, you start out speaking your second language, but slowly, cautiously, you let your first out a little. The reaction is positive, and it surprises you every time. Not only are these people speaking in their own new languages (and, the ultimate shock, yours!), they’re discussing them, not as problems to be mitigated or things of shame, but as things of interest, of celebration, of value. Of course you learn to speak their languages, just like you did with the more common one so long ago, but this time, rather than a painful process of trial and error, it’s a process of wonder and connection, a process where curiosity is rewarded rather than punished, encouraged rather than dismissed. And one day, a day like all the others, you realize what you hear all around you is a panoply of language, a carnival of light and color and love and passion, one that has freed itself simply by embracing the infinite diversity in its infinite combinations, one that uses the dull grays and whites and soft pastels all around it as a boundless canvas on which to spread all colors, rather than as strict lines to color neatly inside. And you hear this speech all around you. And you speak too. You speak a language. You speak a language that flows like water and tastes like honey. And only then do you begin to communicate what you’ve been ready to say all along.