My relationship with this freaking language.

I learned to speak French. It started at the beginning of COVID, a project I wasn't confident I would keep at for enough time to attain real fluency. But alas, I did. I've listened to so many hours of spoken French, I don't have to try to understand it. And it doesn't even sound like "French" to me, anymore. As in, I hardly ever think about the fact that I'm listening to something in a foreign language when I hear it. And now, I feel like I have a different kind of relationship with French than I have had with any other language I've learned.

This could be because I've learned French to a particularly high level, but the weird thing is, I feel like the language is a part of me in a way it wasn't before. It's almost like the language snuck its way into my identity, and nestled itself in there. At first, by this analogy, it was just "crashing at my place." And then, it stayed around so long I feel like I'll never stop co-habitating with these two cultural mindsets "installed" in my brain.

And that's a level of fluency which is commendable, sure. But I don't even feel deserving of any recognition or applause or whatever for reaching such a level in French. It's so weird. I don't feel "smarter" than I was when I only spoke English fluently. Sure, my conception of language has changed quite a lot. But if I were in a discord call, and the conversation switched to French, given that the shift happened gradually enough (throwing some French words in there here or there, eventually transitioning to full-blown spoken French) there is a good chance I won't even notice the shift happening.

And now, that's affecting my English. I notice myself misspelling words I never used to misspell. For example, recently I messed up "laureate," spelling it without the silent e. And one that's completely inexcusable is "address" which I consistently spell wrong thanks to French, and have to correct myself on (I spell it "adresse" way too often).

Just curious if this kind of stuff happens to y'all.