I feel as if I probably say this every post, but now it really is starting to feel real. We leave in almost one month.

It still seems as if I’ve been here for barely any time at all, as I stare at my homework planner, filled to the brim with research and papers I still have yet to write. But as hard as it is to believe, we’ve reached the point where I think it’s probably valid to try to start fitting as many things in as possible before I have to float away out of the liminal existence I’ve been in for the past semester. It truly is terrifying.

I’ve been extremely lucky to have been able to pin down an internship back home for this summer in the lovely city of Seattle, but part of getting ready for that time is needing to find housing in one of the most costly places to live in the US. For the past month or so, I’ve been telling myself that I still have time, I don’t need to worry about it yet. But this week, I was reminded by my internship company that, no, I actually do need to worry about it now. Unfortunately, my return approaches. I don’t recommend the impossible task of trying to find an affordable place to live while halfway across the world in another country. That task is hard enough as it is. So as I get my ducks in a row for coming back in a horribly short amount of time, I have been thinking about my time here and what I have to show for it. What will I take back with me from Sweden, other than several ill-advised habit purchases and a superiority complex?

I often think about language learning and linguistics, and one of the things I’ve been most grateful for in Sweden is being exposed to the language that I’ve been trying to learn for several years now, and having the opportunity to speak it and listen to all kinds of new words. People often describe language learning as an exponential curve, where at the beginning, you learn so much so quickly and improve incredibly fast. I felt that too, in my first months of being here when my comprehension of spoken language and pronunciation skyrocketed. My years of studying paid off! I can read the signs in the café and help when my friends look at me after being spoken at in rapid Swedish by a service employee!

But then comes the long part of the curve. I’ve been reminded recently, by how wonderfully fluent my siblings are among other things, about how far I really have to go. There’s a certain jealousy to it, when thinking about how everyone in this country has been learning three languages from a very young age, about what could have been had I been offered the same opportunities. It is almost unacceptable here to not be fluent in at least two languages, and I really have been resenting my past upbringing back home to where I haven’t had that. The best time to learn a language is as a child, and unfortunately I think I might be past that period.

The journey to fluency is a long road, and no one can really say when one is “fluent” or not. But it stresses me out to think that just now, as I’m really starting to get the hang of speaking this language and finding my place in this community, I have to get ready to go again. I don’t even think I remember what it’s like to be in the grocery store and be greeted by the cashier in my own native tongue. The only way to really master a language is time and immersion, and I’m about to leave behind both of those things. I would like to be fluent in Swedish. I’ve dedicated too much of my life to this to leave it behind now. But I’m trying to make myself comfortable with the fact that that can’t happen now, and it may not happen for quite some time. Just like leaving this country, it is an inevitability, and no amount of yearning can change that. Only time.

I’m excited to come back to my country and return to a place I know and love. But I love this place too, and the way people speak and think in different ways from me. I’ll miss feeling like an island in a sea of word puzzles, waiting to be solved. Anyway, this is a lot of philosophizing to just say that I haven’t been as diligent in learning my vocabulary as I should be. But as I get ready to pack up again, mentally and physically, I want to do my best to not forget this place. So if anyone in Seattle is looking for a Swedish café conversation buddy, you’ve got one right here.

Åh Sverige, vad mycket skall jag sakna er!