Melissa's Travels

What am I doing up at 1am when in 6 short hours from now I'm going to have to drag myself out of bed to board the bus and head downtown for one of my final days of work at NEDA? Concerned about my ability to stay awake on the drive home from Children's I chugged a red bull and now have the caffeine racing around under my skin. Hoping to cancel the effects I've now downed two glasses of delicious Trader Joes Velvet Moon wine, but I fear that rather than having the intended effect I'm going to wake up feeling exhausted and most likely hungover now as well. Not to mention that my beverage consumption in the past three two hours, combined with the state of hightened anxiety I currently feel is a recipe for getting sick, which is exactly what I don't need since my health insurance expired yesterday and I leave for Spain in 11 days (eek! just the thought of this makes me want to finish off the bottle of wine...).

It's strange to know that two weeks from now I'll be sleeping in a strange bed, potentially being forced to consume breakfast foods I don't particularly like and stumbling through my days conversing in a language I now have less than an elementary understanding of. It's all so surreal. I find my mind repeatedly settling on the title of Pedro Calderon de la Barca's infamous play, "Life is a Dream", as the perfect phrase to sum up my present perspective on life. In preparation for needing to ground myself and bring familiarity in a place far from home, I'm continually asking myself what really proves reality anyways? Is it really as simple as Descartes claimed it is when he said, "I think, therefore I am." Are my thoughts proof of my existence and is my experience really entirely objective? I feel that I could easily go off into some philosophical, metaphysical tangent here, but my point really is that I don't think I should be taking life in a direction as serious as anxious tendencies often push me towards. I'm so quick to get wrapped up in daydreams about the worst possible scenarios when in reality the moments I experience really are never as detrimental as my imagination makes them out to possibly be.

When I was younger my dad would try to instill in me the wisdom of FDR, "You have nothing to fear but fear itself." Of course, for an eight year old who is absolutely convinced that murdering trolls will find their way out of her bedroom walls if she lets her guard down, these powerful words of wisdom mean nothing. As a young adult, I now realize just how much truth resides within this statement. It reminds me of this autistic patient I've been working with lately at the hospital. Many of my coworkers are hesitant to work with him (alright, "hesitant" is not the word, they would rather run their palms on a cheese grater than work with this patient.) The reason behind this being that the primary word used to describe him is "poopy" because he's not potty trained. I too have yet to put "diaper changes" on the top of my list of favorite things about my job and in fact from the moment I step on the floor I dread the inevitible time when I have to put on the latex gloves and grab the necessary pile of diaper wipes. However, when that moment finally arises I am devoid of fear and am completely focused on the task at hand. The actual experience never matches the concoction of my imagination in this instance and I think this lesson extends to every other instance in life. I guess I'm saying that when I'm on board my flight to Madrid, envisioning all of the worst case scenarios I hope I can remember my worst diaper changing experiences at the hospital and find that my fears disappear.

God, I can't believe that I'm actually facing one of my biggest fears and chasing what I assume to be my dreams into the unknown! At church yesterday our pastor said that the more you listen to what the Holy Spirit has to tell you regarding God's "plan," the louder the voice will become. I remember reading something similar to this in Wayne Dyer's "Manifest Your Destiny." Dyer said that you need to practice listening to your heart, the more you follow what you believe your heart is telling you to do, the easier it will become to recognize how your heart speaks to you and therefore you will know which part of the internal dialogue speaks on your heart's behalf. I'd like to believe that making the decision to go to Spain was one step towards listening to my heart (or the Holy Spirit, however you prefer to refer to this stirring within my soul). Eight weeks ago I sat in church one Sunday night praying with all my soul for some sort of wisdom and direction on what to do in regard to following one of my close friends on her journey through Europe. Within my mind appeared a picture of SeaTac airport, which confirmed to my heart that I was without a doubt going to Spain. However, an hour and half later I found myself accompanying my best friend to pick up her sister at SeaTac and my heart was once again thrown into a state of limbo. Yet that feeling of peace I'd felt in church, when I'd allowed myself to actually consider going to Europe, would haunt me for the days to come. I knew that one way or another I needed to make this happen. My heart refused to say no to the possibility.

So now I prepare to embark on this journey on my own terms. I'm going alone and I'm not going to settle for being an au pair or taking on an internship. I'm committing myself to learning the language, to living with a family. Almost everyone I've shared my plans with has asked me the question of "why" I've chosen to go to Spain. It seems like every party somehow deserves a different answer, depending on our relationship and my current willingness to be vulnerable (or if I'm feeling too lazy to actually launch into a real conversation). However, when I ask my heart why I'm going to Spain I can't help but remember a very clear memory from my visit to Spain three years ago. We'd spent the afternoon following classes in Retiro Park (Madrid). The sun had been bronzing our shoulders as we immersed ourselves in conversation with a group of friends from Belgium who shared with us their own stories of travel and learning English from watching American movies. As I listened to these young women I was acutely aware of my own friends rowing boats through the center of the park only feet away from me, as well as the strangers picnicing, practicing scarf dancing and even discretely prodding strangers to purchase weed from them. I'm not sure what it was about this scene that prompted me to this conclusion as I left Retiro that day but I know I walked out absolutely certain that I needed to return to Spain (Madrid specifically) one day. Unfortunately, as I said these words my heart teared up with the assumption that this event would never actually occur. I think it was my naive attitude about the complexities associated with traveling abroad coupled with my feelings of dependence that plagued me even a year following a bittersweet breakup, that led to these tears. The fact that I am now proudly contradicting these assumptions about my own capabilities, and thereby comforting the girl in me who wept at knowing I'd never return, brings me more joy than I can possibly articulate in a blog. I am returning to Spain!

I am once again going to be able to eat lunch at Maoz (which will likely happen each of the 54 days I spend in Madrid since my homestay doesn't provide lunch) and wander through El Corte Ingles hoping to find a roll of scotch tape or a box of tampons amidst row upon row of salted hamhocks. I will have the option of spending every night at Club Joy if I please and can waste away the afternoons with journaling and napping in Retiro Park. I'll inevitibly encounter awkward moments while trying to break through the language barrier and navigating a city that I can't officially call "home." Yet, I'm certain my experiences will be journal worthy and will continually reassure me that adventures aren't nearly as frightening as my imagination is out to make me think.