One Thing I’ve Learned from Every Place I’ve Lived: Small-Town Spain (Ep. 2)
Somewhere in the beginning of 2024, I had the idea for this theme. I’ve lived in quite a few cities in the last 10 years, some of them dreams fulfilled and others happy accidents. Most of these places were my homes for a year or more, while a couple of them ended up being just a few months. But each one was meaningful in its own unique way and has left me with lifelong memories—good, bad, monumental, uneventful—and lessons learned.
In this series, which I’ve decided to separate by “episodes”, I’m going to choose just one of those lessons to ruminate on and, in a way, to symbolize my personal attachment to each place. These posts will be complemented by some hopefully fun (possibly funny) throwback pictures too, of course!
Episode Two: The Scary Little Things
During my undergraduate studies, I considered applying to a semester abroad in either Spain or Argentina. After evaluating the pros and cons, and how it might affect my credits toward my major (English Literature, not Spanish), I decided against it. So, after graduating from my Master’s program in the UK, it was rather incredible that I got the opportunity to live in Spain for just three short months.
The town was a couple of hours south of Madrid by train. It was small, and it wasn’t the sort of place to attract many tourists. I’d done a course in teaching English as a second language and was interested in testing my budding skills, so I was excited to be the only native English speaker in the area and to get to help learners practice their language skills and exchange cultures. Of course, I didn’t realize yet how needing to speak English in most of my interactions would impact my ability to improve my Spanish and, ultimately, leave me feeling a little bit isolated, despite the warm welcome that I received from so many of the kind people in my temporary town.
This short period of my life presented me with more challenges than I ever could have predicted, on both practical and emotional levels. (There were also some unrelated personal events that definitely affected my frame of mind during this time too.) But there’s one lesson that I’m especially grateful to have taken away from the experience: bravery doesn’t always have to look heroic, and sometimes it takes courage to do things that seem, on the surface, pretty unremarkable.
Growing up, I was an opinionated chatterbox around people I knew well, but I struggled with social anxiety and nervousness in new or unpredictable social environments. While there’s nothing wrong with being quiet or introverted, I felt like my extreme inhibitions were holding me back and having a negative impact on my life and goals; so I put in a lot of work and found ways of expressing myself more confidently. I thought I’d overcome my shyness—”outgrown” it. What I didn’t realize, though, was how easily that self-assurance could slip away if it was challenged strongly (or repeatedly) enough.
Being by myself in a place with few other foreigners and realizing that my Spanish abilities withered quite quickly outside of the classroom where I’d learned them, I was constantly finding myself confused, uncertain, and distanced from those around me. Even going to the store to buy groceries risked being put on the spot: who knew that you had to weigh your fruit and vegetables and put a sticker on the bag yourself, before going to the checkout counter? (Me, at that point in my life. That’s who!)
When I would struggle to understand or communicate, people around me would stare. Now, I look back and think that I shouldn’t have felt ashamed: I was doing my best, and they were probably just curious what was going on. But at the time, it felt like the worst kind of spotlight. It surfaced many insecurities, not the least was the fact that I thought my abilities—in Spanish and in self-confidence—were more secure than that. Maybe I looked like Don Quixote tilting at windmills to everyone else, but in my mind I felt like I was fighting impossible giants.
As a bit of time passed, I began to form a routine. I learned my way around town and grew comfortable speaking Spanish when I needed to. It was only when those “little things” began to require less effort that I realized how much courage it had actually taken me to do them in the first place, to fight through the awkwardness and embarrassment and unwanted attention in order get myself to that point of composure. Maybe the impossible giants were only in my head, but that didn’t make them any less frightening.
My last weeks in Spain were defined by this newfound nerve. I embraced as much of it as I could muster, trying to focus not on what scared me, but instead on what I had accomplished and could still in the time I had left. I also decided that, if I was lucky enough to get another chance to experience something like this again, I would be bold enough to make the absolute most of it from the start.
Before my flight home, I spent my last days in Madrid. Visiting a capital city as a solo traveler was an intimidating idea, but I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity! Relying on my one past day trip with a friend and my maps app, I walked all around the city center, visited touristy highlights, and even went out to eat by myself (a big feat, even for me today I have to admit!). I spoke the Spanish I knew and absorbed as much as I could from all around me. I was confused and uncertain in more than one moment, but I allowed myself to be.
In the end, this struggle is a lot bigger than a few months in a single place can solve (it’s a lifelong kind of journey). But what I learned while living in Spain set me on a path toward a valuable change in mindset: I began to allow myself to recognize the things that challenge me as real challenges. To give myself the grace to feel all the feels, even big and dramatic ones that, in my mind prior to this experience, had no business being associated with something as simple as a queue at the supermarket. To feel proud of myself every time I did just a little bit better—even if my “little bit better” was still far from where I wanted to one day be. There are many different shades of courage, some of which I’m still discovering today; this experience gave me the lens I needed to see a few more of them in myself.
