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You Will Be Young for a Very Long Time
Advice I wish I’d gotten when I was busy getting old
The first time I thought I was too old to start something, I was in high school.
I was learning Spanish and really taking to it. The thought of traveling to another country and being able to communicate in a foreign language was incredibly exciting. So when I got the opportunity to live with a host family in Spain one summer, I asked my parents for permission to go.
There was only one problem: My aunt had read an article on how the language pathways in the brain shrivel up and die after age two, and she presented this to me just as I was contemplating my summer opportunity. I would never be fluent in another language. I had missed my chance. Two-year-old me had slacked off and now 16-year-old me was going to pay for it by never speaking intelligible Spanish.
I didn’t go to Spain. What was the point? My 16-year-old brain, with its geriatric pathways and decrepit connectors (I’m not a scientist), would only embarrass me in front of the native speakers.
I wonder what could have been had I gone anyway. Maybe I never would’ve been able to carry on a lively conversation with fluent command of the language. But now, 20 years later, I could’ve been close.
