Honesty

Since one of my goals for this blog is to try to be transparent, I would like to share a personal struggle that I have dealt with in the past, but find myself also dealing with as I am now here in Spain.

One of my main goals in coming to Spain is to perfect my language skills, both oral and written. More specifically, I would like to improve my professional writing skills in Spanish as well as be able to better communicate verbally with more ease and less grammatical errors. Well, today I got really frustrated with myself because I didn’t feel that I was where I need to be nor where I want to be in relation to my Spanish language skills. That frustrates me. First, I am at the graduate level, and secondly, I am a Spanish instructor. I feel like I have a certain standard that I need to uphold for myself, so I cannot help but get upset with myself when I mess up or say something wrong.

It’s not simply making mistakes that frustrate me. Being completely honest, I still get nervous when speaking Spanish, especially to people who I think are going to judge me. I’m not referring to experiencing shyness or timidity, but rather fear. I mean real, stomach-churning, make-you-wanna-run-away type of fear. You know, the kind that manifests physiologically. This fear itself is counterintuitive because when I get nervous, I make even more mistakes. I know this may be hard for some to understand because you all think, “Teljer is not shy”. True. But that doesn’t mean that I’m fearless or that don’t struggle with fear of speaking. It is even hard for me to process because I want this so badly! People have many times told me “hablas muy bien español,” ("you speak Spanish really well") but sometimes that is not good enough. I want to speak like a native speaker and anything that falls just shy of that is not good enough for me. I want it so badly that sometimes it makes me want to cry.

But alas, reality keeps me in check. Really, I have only been in Spain for a little over a week. I know that I am a perfectionist, but I need to remind myself to take it in stride, setting realistic goals for myself. If I am not careful, my temporary frustration may make me forget or even disregard all the hard work that I have done to even get to the point where I’m at.

I got some great advice from one of my roommates tonight. She said “cuando tengas esas ideas, siempre mira hacia atras en tu camino y lo que has logrado, eso te motivará para lo que sigue.” ("Whenever you have those thoughts, always look back at the path from which you've come and what you've attained and that is what will motivate you for what's ahead"). Words of wisdom. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

So what is the resolution to this all? That I am not giving up! I am going to keep working at it. I know that I am hard on myself. But my ambition and hard work need to be seasoned with patience, positivity, and hope. Sigh. Indeed, I have a journey in front of me, but I am hopeful that it has a happy ending.