I’m in the Netherlands speaking mainly Dutch, a language at which I have worked very hard to become fluent in.

But I’m not fluent. Not by a long stretch.

That is, I’m not fluent if I measure fluency based on my comfort levels in English.

Then again, my comfort levels in English won’t allow me to say exactly what I’m wanting to say, in a blog like this, for instance, without batting words back and forth until they start to feel like something that works. And , even then, I often have to settle for: “in the ballpark”.

If I measure my ability in English in that way, I’m not fluent in my mother tongue either.

Which begs the question - will we ever get there?

And the answer as always is that we better make damn sure to enjoy the journey. Because the destination we think we’re heading for, might actually be unreachable.