My Italian words aren’t just the everyday words that I’ve used all my life; they’re a distinct set of memories that I formed with my own hands and brain. In learning that language, I created a new mind and a new personality for myself. That is the dearest gift of language learning—you get to meet a new you.

Once you move overseas, you slowly, without noticing at first, start to develop a new struggle around your identity that you didn’t know existed before. Before your move, you had simple answers to questions such as “Where are you from?” and “Where’s home for you?”