My thoughts have an accent. No, really. When I count my change at the veikals (the shop), it’s in Latvian–viens, divi, tris. The numbers feel solid, grounded, like the cobblestones in Old Riga. But when I’m daydreaming about leaving this all behind, maybe for university in London or just travelling somewhere far, my inner monologue switches to English. It flows differently; it’s lighter, full of possibilities and words that don’t have direct translations.Sometimes it causes a civil war in my head. My Latvian side is pragmatic, a little melancholic, shaped by long winters and a history that runs deep like a river. It tells me to be sensible, to study something useful at the University of Latvia, to stay close to my family. It’s the voice that finds comfort in the smell of rye bread and the sound of our folk songs.Then my English side pipes up. It’s the voice of movies, of internet friends, of a world that feels vast and hungry for experience. It’s ambitious and reckless. It whispers about art degrees, hostels in foreign cities, and a life written in a language that doesn’t automatically tie me to this specific patch of earth by the Baltic Sea.I’m not two people. I’m just Lesya, one girl standing in her kitchen in Riga, making a cup of tea. But I stir that tea with a spoon that feels both familiar and foreign. I love my home with a fierce, Latvian pride, but my dreams are spelled out in English letters. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe having a bilingual heart doesn’t mean you’re torn. Maybe it just means you have more ways to understand the world, and more words to describe your place in it.
