I remember when I was 14 or 15 I fell in love, from a distance of course, with a French foreign exchange student in my high school. I never dared write him a poem, and I didn’t speak French anymore than you did, but I dreamed of speaking French and I dreamed of falling in love with beautiful French men.

I didn’t believe such a thing would ever be possible. But today, I speak French, I’ve written French poetry for real, and I have experienced deep love, sometimes with French people.

I wish I could go back and tell my 14-year-old self that all these things would really happen.