FEAR

          Before I left for my adventure in Spain, a number of people asked if I planned to blog about my time here and were very intent on persuading me to do so. I kindly, but firmly turned them down. Although I love to write and I love to share my stories with friends and family, I had no desire to do so in a format that was open to the public and broadcasted over the world wide web. 

As many of you know, I’m a bit of an “old soul” in the way that I’m leery of the world of technology and am not a fan of how much information is available about us at the click of a button. I was not interested in adding yet another link to that list for any stranger to happen upon. I was also carrying around this conviction that I didn’t want to share my stories so “impersonally”. For me, to have a skype date, a facebook thread, or personal email through which to recount my tales and catch up with individual people is so much more endearing. And anyways, if you don’t wanna take the time to ask me personally, why should you get the privilege of reading about my fantastic life?? At least, that’s how I saw it before I got here.

Since arriving in Spain, however, my perspective on a lot of things has been shifting. It’s not just because of the “no pasa nada” mentality that I continuously joke about. It’s not just because of the appreciation I have for the educational experience that I was so fortunate to receive and my aspirations to truly share some of that with my students and the staff at my primary school where the experience is markedly different. It’s not because of so many of the little things I can think of that would highlight the cultural differences between Spain and the US. My perspective is beginning to change because of the big things—people who I have met and experiences I have had that raised questions so big that I can barely begin to share them here, let alone answer them… but over the next few months, I will try.

What am I doing here? (In Spain… on this planet…interpret however you see fit.)


Why have my passions led me here and what does that say about the person I am?


Do I like the person I am? What parts of me am I so proud of? What parts of me do I want to work on improving? 


How do I fully embrace the incredibleness of my time here and take advantage of every beautiful, minute opportunity while still treating it as my comfortable everyday life? How do I keep from becoming complacent about my dreams while I’m living one?


If Spain has been the big scary dream for the past few years and now I’m here already tackling it, what’s next? How can I balance working towards the next dream, while still focusing on the amazing life I have right now?


How in the world do I even begin to answer these questions?!?!?

Although I know I’ll still rely on my personal journaling and on much-needed heart-to-hearts with much-appreciated best friends, I think it’s time for something new. The last time blogging was suggested to me it was done so in a new light and I think that being forced to see it in that way has made me understand why I need to do it. 

At the same time that my fear about blogging revolves around sharing with others, it first and foremost revolves around me. I have been talking about being a writer…probably since I first picked up a good book. It’s something that I believe I am innately good at, but more importantly, it’s something that feeds my soul. I always say that I want to be able to share that emotional experience with others the way that I have felt it shared through the words of my favorite authors. And I do want that; it is not a lie. What is a lie, however, is the reason I tell myself I’m not doing it. The truth is far simpler: I am afraid.

I am deathly afraid of putting my writing out there for the world to see because I’m so worried that people won’t like it. Even scarier is what you— the people I am closest to and the people I care most about— will think. That’s why forcing myself to blog is so important. In order to write through a public forum I have to know that my words have an audience, but know that that audience is not one particular person for whom I know how to sculpt my words. With a blog I can’t choose to share a different version of an experience with each different person I tell. I can’t share my feelings from the perspective that I know one particular listener will relate to the most. I have to just be myself.

And the worst part about that is…I still don’t know quite who I am. It’s not only a matter of being honest with my readers; it’s a matter of being completely honest with myself. And I never realized that that scares me. I’m not merely afraid that you won’t like the person I present myself as through my writing; I’m also afraid that the way I choose to present myself won’t wholeheartedly fulfill my own expectations. 

It’s almost as though I’ve been waiting for the “right time” to really delve into my writing, the time at which I feel fully defined and confident in who I am as a person and as a writer. But I don’t think that day will ever come. Or even if it will, I’m going to miss out on so many years—in which I could do great things—merely waiting to feel like I can do great things. 

I don’t quite know where this blog is going to go. Like much of my personal writing, I anticipate that each entry may end up as something incredibly different than I envisioned when I started out. That’s okay. At times it may get too personal or too long-winded or too dull for your individual taste. That’s okay too. What’s important is that I’m constantly pushing myself outside of my comfort zone while I’m here in Spain. It seems ironic to me, really, that writing would be a way to do that since it has always been my chosen form of solace. But now it’s time to take something I love and turn it into something greater.  I’m still anxious about it all but I have confidence that I’m going to figure it out along the way. And I do truly think this will help me confront the fears I have that stand between wanting to be a writer and being a writer.  

I’m not quite sure what I’m getting myself into or what you’ll be getting into by choosing to subscribe… but I invite you along for the journey.