I heard somewhere that you've got to keep learning all through your life in order to stay young. I think I've narrowed it down even more than that: As I long as I keep learning languages, I'll always remember what it was like to be a child learning how to relate to the world.

As I continue to learn the French language I keep having these flashbacks of learning to read and write for the first time. I remember how things gradually fit into place, little by little. I remember the frustrated elation of learning how to express things I'd already been thinking about for a long time.

When learning to read and write became too tiresome I retreated into a world of my own where every made sense, instantly. Now, when French becomes too much for my brain to handle, I retreat back to English. I'm not sure it's an improvement over my childhood fantasy world; then again I'm not sure there's any difference. I think the difference is that then, there was a lot less of me to lose. I was a child with no defining experiences to fall back on, so I got lost easier. Here I sit now, still trying to figure things out.