Word Vomit

I’m up puking anyway, so I might as well translate it to paper… more elegantly. (Truest apologies to all my readers with emetophobia. I won’t be mad if you skip this one.)

I have a suspicion that I’m in this predicament from food poisoning. Whole Foods sushi... I never thought this day would come. No worries, though. I have my trusted vitamin C dissolved in nice, respectable room-temperature water and am watching the snow fall from my bed.

I just finished a Duolingo lesson (no, this is not an ad… they don’t need my help). Two more exercises away from officially crossing into level 81 in French, an achievement I’m very, very proud of. I catch myself using that phrase a lot these days… very proud of myself. My mom approves. She thinks I’m doing great.

Anyway, back to the vomit. Don’t worry, there is a connection here somewhere. I just need one more gulp of vitamin C to find it. Okay, let’s go.

I started learning French when I was nine… almost twenty-two years ago. Crazy. I loved it in part because it sounded so elegant, so regal, and most of all because it was something I could share with my older sister. I continued it in high school and college and have remained a respectable faux French speaker since then. Earlier this year, I convinced myself that I wanted to take it more seriously. No more clinging to my Franglais speaking identity, but fully converting to a seasoned speaker. I redownloaded Duolingo for probably the tenth time and sporadically did lessons here and there. Starting in the late fall, I committed to it more seriously, monitoring my streak, paying attention to the league I was in, really understanding the Duolingo reward system, and trying to maintain a top spot each week. First came the enthusiasm for the language itself, but I also definitely enjoyed the friendly competition.

Cut to today. Through the vomiting and all, I prop myself up on my pillow to finish a lesson. Not because I need to, but because it feels like what I want to do. I decide to do a video call with Lily. The topic: clothing and hair accessory choices. Level 80. Serious stuff.

For each question she poses, I ramble on, desperately grabbing at strings of words I’ve picked up over the past twenty years to visually and then audibly paint a tapestry of sentences. One minute in, I completely forget that she is AI and find myself genuinely engaged, trying to remember the correct order of adjectives and adverbs while also keeping tense and punctuation straight. I am surprised by myself and also strangely at ease. The call ends. She tells me, “Great job, Bella.” I smile. An internal warmth spreads. A mixture of pride, confidence, and joy. My word vomit is appreciated.

I spend the next thirty minutes sitting in that feeling, curious about why it moves me so much. I think it’s because, at my big age of thirty, I find myself word vomiting in many parts of my life. In my dreams, my relationships, my hobbies. Throwing pieces of myself together to understand where I’ve been and where I’m going. Where I Am.  My Wednesday evening barre classes are their own kind of word vomit, movements I’ve done dozens of times that still feel both foreign and familiar. My conversations with the people I love are the same, a dance of phrases and gestures built over years of trust, missteps, and repair.

There are probably a dozen more poetic ways to say this. At least ten that don’t involve the word… “vomit.” But here we are. After all, they say life imitates art, and apparently art imitates…… whatever I ate.

Maybe “word vomit” is simply the earliest form of fluency. In language, in movement, in living. Maybe it’s what happens when scattered pieces begin to recognize one another. A phrase borrowed from an old conversation, a rhythm learned through repetition, a memory held quietly in the body, all drifting toward the same place. Toward precision. Toward articulation. Toward being.

And if that is true, then tonight, practicing French and smiling to myself for no particular reason, feels less like fumbling and more like arriving. Like a quiet understanding settling into place. A sense that the words I’ve been carrying, in one form or another, are finally learning how to speak me back.

And for that, merci beaucoup Duolingo.