An Act of Bravery in Spain

There are those who are pessimists by blood and wanderers by spirit. To be both, you must be brave, and to be neither, you must be strong-willed. I am neither and both, but I am invisible. Exclusively, I divined in the peacefulness of sitting beneath a tabletop and writing endless stories of characters that enabled me to travel beyond my simple fear and pessimism. Wanderlust ran through my veins, but never could I venture out into the real world. Invisible as I aimed to be, someone always found me and encouraged me to enter a journey I deemed too frightful and dangerous for my confidence. That was before I found a passion; I found a love. My desire to learn and cultivate knowledge leaked into a passion for languages and literature. Simply put, the romantic ghost of life paid me a visit and called me exactly as I was: a fraud. For how can one write tales of adventure if they have never been present enough during their own? I changed. I became visible to myself and the world around me, and I came out from beneath the desk to see those who had looked for me, those whom I had ignored. I booked myself a one-way ticket to Europe with my boyfriend and when I finished high school, I had a pencil and paper, a backpack, little money and all my dreams to live before the dreadful terror that is responsibility made its devastating descent upon my life. I left my invisibility cloak at home and I stepped over the threshold, entering the real world.

At 5am on the plane to Spain, my boyfriend and I were seated beside a charming elderly woman. I say that because I was taught respect for elders as a child, however if she were young, I would probably call her the most frustrating pain in my neck. The entire flight consisted of her committing atrocious crimes against common etiquette and making continuous sexual references, despite her comments on my relationship with my boyfriend. 

“You two are so young, and you better not be doing the naughties until you’re married!”  she had said to us, only to respond after I asked why she was going to Spain, “Oh, I want to find me a young Spaniard.” 

How do you say hypocrite in Spanish?

“Fea!” – “Gorda!” – “Eres tú la morona!” 

My arrival in Spain was more than perfect. I had been geared up for the typical obscenities shouted by youths in the city, but now it hit me. I was in a completely new world. English was a delicacy, yet to me, Spanish was easily the most delicious at this point in time. A calmness reverberated through me as we met with my host family and travelled two hours in their car from Madrid to Valladolid. Spain was so painfully beautiful; the colours, the scarves, the dancing legs and the beautiful grins, unworried faces and fast-food stalls. I could see large spaces. No longer did I want to sit under a table and write stories, I wanted to look out and see the lake, the scenary, and write in truth. Write about the beauty of bravery, leading to an ultimate discovery of the world and oneself. In passing a square with the Spanish flag, amongst a car of Spanish chatter, I felt a heat rise in my throat and a saltiness dripping down my cheeks. The tears flowed and the smile broke. 

For me, Intuition represents an invisible balm on a body; it may soothe in times of undecided distress; prepare in times of fear; strengthen in times of confidence; advance in times of intellectual desire and you know it has reached full potential when you have no explanation; when you know. You simply feel it in your bones, in your core, that you have reached this place and you understand something unique about it. 

Welcome to your place in the world, bienvenido a España, the chilled air declared before me. 

My intuition brought me here, and my travels extended beyond one country, to a new world, where I became visible in one decision. The decision to follow my passion. I found my place in the world in one decision, one intuition, one love. 

Only when I realized that my fears existed not for my inability to succeed, but my concern that I am powerful beyond belief, could I find my place in the world. And commit to one act; 

An act of bravery, to be seen.

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