Capable

Lately I’ve had a little extra bounce in my step due to an exhilarating feeling of capability and confidence.

It’s just been a series of little occurrences that made me stop and take notice and think, “hey, look at me go!”—not in an egotistical way, just a happy surprised way.

For one thing, I took a vacation by myself for the first time ever last weekend (a lengthy post on this is coming to you soon!) and it was an overwhelming success. I had revelation after revelation about life, travel, myself and happiness. It was a joy.

But really what’s been making me feel a little extra happy is my level of Español. Do you remember when I made this post six months ago? Well, guess what? I’m still not fluent. Far from it.

But.

I am capable. I am functional. And it feels so so good. I think the main change is not in my actual level of fluency but in my own feeling of confidence. When I arrived in Spain any little task I had to accomplish took hours of prep because I needed to write out my “lines”, practice them, hyperventilate a little bit, try to calm myself down and then finally head into the store/make the call/etc. Now, in the past week alone, I have booked train tickets, called to make hotel reservations, chatted with museum workers and market artisans, and called taxis all in Spanish, all without batting an eyelash. Gone are the hours of practice and hyperventilating. The truth is that I may still make just as many mistakes when I interact with people in Spanish but I am willing to put myself out there and just do it without the panic attacks and stress I was causing myself by all my embarrassment and fear of failure.

And the thing is, for all my mistakes, I can communicate. When I want to book the room or call the taxi, they understand and the room gets booked, the taxi comes.

Although I am definitely calmer and more confident to do these things now, I still get a little thrill every time I do successfully function en Español. Last weekend on my epic trip I was wandering an art museum and the attendant decided to come over and explain a display to me. Palma de Mallorca, it turns out, has a huge German tourist population so a lot of what I heard around me was actually German, then Spanish, then English. This means that people working in the city really need to have a basic handle on all three languages as it is a big tourism town. So I was shocked and thrilled that this man began explaining in rapid Spanish without first asking what language I spoke, as almost everyone else I encountered during my weekend did. Of course, once I responded it became apparent that I was not a native speaker, but we continued to converse in Spanish. Do you know what he told me? He told me my accent was very small and not too noticeable. That may have been one of the best compliments I’ve gotten all year! I was secretly thrilled. For all my mistakes, I consider it a huge success if I am at least picking up on pronunciation and the local accent.

So, fluent I am not.

But I am capable. And it feels so good.

P.S.: You know who else is capable? Girls who read.