School – Crystal, Clearly

An Adventure

One foot in front of the other has gotten me through assorted crises and chaos. It got me the world’s slowest associate’s degree and into a fancy university with many study-abroad opportunities. I set my sights on a five-week program in Mexico City.

The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.
Oprah Winfrey

I was into tarot cards in junior high. My card was The Fool. This card can be first or last, the alpha and the omega, like an ace. The Fool’s superpower, not that tarot cards actually have superpowers, is just to put one foot in front of the other. Sometimes circumstances are favorable; sometimes, everything’s a mess. Either way, just keep going.

I feel like I’ve spent my whole life almost learning Spanish. I understand a lot, but there are usually words that I don’t get, and sometimes they aren’t the words that matter, but sometimes they are. It seems that five weeks of studying the Spanish language and Mexican culture while submersed in both ought to push me over the edge into fluency.

I have a cousin in Mexico who I miss dearly and I’m sure I could include a visit with him and his wife while I’m there. I also have a tía in central California who intends to speak to me in English, but whenever she gets excited, she starts speaking to me in rapid-fire fluent Spanish. She’s older, and if I interrupt her to ask her to switch back to English, she loses her train of thought. She is my only hope for learning the stories of that side of my family, and I don’t want my language shortcomings to be the barrier that prevents that.

Also, the Work Bestie teaches in Spanish sometimes, in Spain, in Mexico, and soon in California. My favorite teaching experience was something I didn’t even want to do. I was just administrative support for that workshop. I had not psyched myself up to public speaking at all. He’d taught me how to teach that module years before, but I don’t think I’d ever taught it in front of him before, let alone with him. Honestly, I was kinda sick of teaching that module, but his voice was going out on him.

I brought all the goofy dad jokes to the lesson plan. I love that I can make him laugh with the cheesiest nonsense. He’s so much better at the whiteboard than I am. But I brought in handouts to make up for that. He also has field experience that I don’t, though. The point is, I think that we teach really well together. We are alike enough to set a shared goal, and our differences are complementary.

If I can get myself fluent in Spanish and competent in the rest of what we teach, I can coteach with him more, here and abroad. So, I was fully committed to pursuing this five-week study abroad opportunity in Mexico City. I didn’t know how I’d fund it, but I can work miracles when there’s a fire under me.

And then there was Portugal. Portugal had a later deadline to apply and also a $5000 scholarship. It was a two-month program instead of five weeks. It was in a very different time zone. It wasn’t going to help me speak Spanish, not even a little bit, but it was funded. Funded makes a huge difference.

He denies it, but I tried to talk the Work Bestie into joining the Peace Corps after I graduate. He said he was tired of going to foreign countries just to work his butt off. He would rather go with free time and comfy accommodations. I reckoned if I spent two months on a different continent, in a country where I did not know the language, studying my butt off, it would probably scratch the same itch I’ve had for the Peace Corps for all these years. Yeah, going to Portugal felt like a good step toward becoming the best version of myself.

And do you feel scared? I do
But I won’t stop and falter
And if we threw it all away
Things can only get better
Howard Jones
Things Can Only Get Better

Howard Jones – Things Can Only Get Better

Never Say Never

I took one class a semester for eight years to get my associate’s degree. It was painfully slow, but in the end, it actually worked. I was ready to transfer to a university when my youngest turned eighteen.

So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.
Christopher Reeve

I was a terrible student growing up. I ditched much of middle school. I had a bus pass, an annual membership to the L.A. Zoo, one to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and a library card. I learned so much ditching school. I love learning; I’m just bad at being a student.

By high school, I was already determined to be a housewife someday. Two different career paths offered themselves when I was on the cusp of adulthood. One was an apprenticeship to an auto mechanic (though I would have to get some official education at the community college level to make a career out of it), and the other was working with developmentally disabled adults in a day program. They both appealed to me, but I picked the latter because it would do more to prepare me for motherhood.

In the end, I am quite good with kids and in the kitchen. Unfortunately, the job market for housewives doesn’t allow for much career mobility. If I live the rest of my life on my own, I need to get my ish together because no one else will take care of my business for me. If I’m going to live the rest of my life with a partner, I still need to get my ish together because anyone worth being in a relationship with deserves the best version of me I can be.

I went back to school in my 30s. It wasn’t easy. Thank goodness for Google and Starbucks. One answered my questions like, “how do people study?” and the other gave me a place to follow that advice without the man who was becoming my ex-husband being able to sabotage me. I took one class a semester for eight years to get my associate’s degree. It was painfully slow, but in the end, it actually worked. I was ready to transfer to a university when my youngest turned eighteen. Of the eight universities I applied to, only the CSU and UC in San Diego turned me down. That would be the two schools in the city where my Work Bestie lives.

When we were both completely single, I would write him long, rambling emails, explicitly telling him how I wanted him and why and telling him to “just take the compliment” and move on. I don’t date younger, or colleagues, and I wasn’t ready for anything serious with so much trauma to process from my marriage, and I don’t want anything superficial either. I’m all or nothing; in this case, it would be best to stick to nothing. I told him we were never going to be a thing, and I told him why I never ever wanted to be a thing. I also told him to visit me and go on adventures with me. After all, he was my Work Bestie; visits and adventures are what besties do.

After years of being the first person I told any news to, he was the last person I told when I accepted the admission offer from my dream school. There really was no choice even close to the benefits of going to Berkeley for me. It was the right thing to do if I was going to stick to my guns about becoming the best version of myself. It also meant moving 400 miles further away from my Work Bestie when the 100 miles between us was already almost too much to bear. I knew that if I moved away, we would meet other people and drift apart, but I was just as sure that if I didn’t, I would never be the partner I wanted to be someday, let alone the independent woman I needed to be.

Berkeley had been the last school to give me an answer. I was sure that they had rejected me so hard that they weren’t even going to be bothered with telling me so. I was never getting into my dream school. The night before they accepted me, I had gotten drunk and depressed and sent something despairing to the Work Bestie. He called me, and I cried and cried and cried, but he talked me off the ledge. He soothes me as no one else can. Not even he knows it, but I cried just as hard when I realized I was going to Berkeley. I wasn’t ready to move away from him.

There’s the way we may appear
But that will change from day to night
Would you ever see within?
Underneath the skin?
Could I believe you had that sight?
And so you go
No girl could say no
To you
Suzanne Vega
I’ll Never Be Your Maggie May

Suzanne Vega Montreux 2004 06 I’ll Never Be Your Maggie May

Who am I if I Can’t Carry it All?

I asked for money for pastries and lattes, which I did, in fact, spend many of my euros on. More than the breathing room that spending money grants, I felt rooted for and supported, like my journey was being shared.

I have never met a person whose greatest need was anything other than real, unconditional love. You can find it in a simple act of kindness toward someone who needs help. There is no mistaking love…it is the common fiber of life, the flame that heats our soul, energizes our spirit, and supplies passion to our lives.
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross

As a child, I wanted to be indestructible and intimidating enough that nobody tried to find out whether or not I really was indestructible. I believed the key to success and happiness was to need no one and to do it all myself. I was also a big fan of crumpling up and quitting anything as soon as I made a mistake. I was not a particularly successful child.

It turns out that where I have succeeded in my life, it has been through a great deal of vulnerability and willingness to accept help. I am still very uncomfortable with both of these things. The child I used to be still pouts and stomps her feet and fears that my successes will not count, or worse, I’ll owe somebody more than I’m comfortable paying back if I accept any help. Fortunately, the adult I’ve become knows better. Most people like to be helpful. I do. I need to feel helpful.

Despite who I am, I’m trying to set up a life where I make it easy for people to help me and also easy for people to not help me, to whatever degree they are comfortable. Even though accepting help is still an act with which I am decidedly uncomfortable. I’m scrappy. I reckon I can survive without help, but I can do better, I can be better, if I let people help me. Where I can, I pay it forward because I know I can never truly pay it back.

I have been the broke friend for much of my life. It means I often turn down invitations because I can’t afford certain outings. I mean, I also have a lot of demands on my time, and I’m low-key, very introverted. It’s just that I didn’t want to be the shy girl or the broke girl in Portugal. I wanted to be in a position to say yes to everything my summer studying abroad had to offer.

Berkeley Study Abroad recommends setting up a Go Fund Me. I was fortunate to have enough financial aid secured to cover my tuition and basic needs, but there are a handful of people who often spend some money on me around my birthday; I decided to make it possible for them to give me money for my summer in Portugal. I was very clear that I had tuition covered and that I had housing covered. That the funding was the difference between studying in my room and studying in a cafe, not between going abroad or staying home.

The response was overwhelming. It got to where I had to turn off notifications because I was getting all verklempt in public settings. People who have never bought so much as a cup of coffee were contributing generously to my Go Fund Me. Friends and family also helped me out separate from the website, loaning me money for plane fare, buying me new luggage, giving me tips and tricks for my travels.

I worked hard to get into this school and I have actively pursued some of the best opportunities it has to offer. I am proud of getting myself into the position to study abroad. That said, it is the generosity of others that had me in a position to have a grand adventure. I asked for money for pastries and lattes, which I did, in fact, spend many of my euros on. More than the breathing room that spending money grants, I felt rooted for and supported, like my journey was being shared.

In her Ted Talk about The Art of Asking, Amanda Palmer talks about her time as a street performer. Whenever someone put money in her hat, she would give them a flower, or at least try to. I have thought a lot about how to give a flower to each of my supporters but I don’t know how. I never know how to pay people back adequately.

I’ve always wanted to have a travel blog, where I write about the best gear, the best deals, and the things a person must see and do while traveling. , so I would have an excuse to learn about and test the best gear, the best deals, and the things a person must see and do while traveling. That’s not the kind of writer I am, unfortunately.

What I can write is something more specific, personal, and vulnerable. I can tell my story of what I did with my summer vacation. Like most of the stories I tell, it’s made more out of convoluted side paths, than anything straightforward. I’ll talk about luggage, and frugality, and things to see and do, but also about falling in love and falling ill, and silliness and tragedy.

This is not the story that anyone asked for. This is not the story that I chose. This is the story that I have, though. And the best of it would not have been possible without the most amazing support network a person could ever hope to have. I am so grateful, not just for the coffees and pastries but for the feeling that all y’all were rooting for me. I am loved.

Thank you ❤

Do you need anybody?
I just need someone to love
Could it be anybody?
I want somebody to love

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends
The Beatles
With a Little Help from My Friends

Joe Cocker – With a Little Help from my Friends