Acceptance of La Llorona (Mis Pequeños Triunfos, Cómo Me Adapto)
Cuando era niña, yo sufrí mucho abuso. De familia, de amigos, de compañeras de clase. Todo el tiempo, cuando yo trataba una actividad nueva, yo fracasaba mucho. El fracaso no me molestaba mucho. Lo que me afectaba más era la humillación, intimidación, y el castigo que venia con eso. Como resulto, yo lloraba. Durante cada partido de deportes, yo era la más lenta. Durante cada lección de clase, era la ultima en aprender. Aunque con las cosas que yo era buena, nunca recibía reconocimiento, porque había siempre una persona mejor. Mi mejor intento nunca fue lo suficientemente bueno para nadie. Para mis maestras, mis padres, mis amigos. Nadie.
Pero, nunca he dejado de intentarlo. Pero ahora, yo lloro mucho. Para mí, llorar y luchar es lo mismo. Es como yo libero el dolor, entonces el no dolor no se queda adentro, y no se convierte en odio. Mientras yo siga llorando, yo siga amando, y yo siga cuidando. Solamente lloro por cosas que me importan. Si no me importa, no me molesta. Entonces, cuando yo lloro, no es siempre porque estoy triste. Lloro porque estoy frustrada, porque cuando yo fracaso, me siento como si yo fracasara siempre mi vida. Lloro porque mi mejor intento todavía no es suficiente. Lloro porque otras personas han tenido peores experiencias, pero ellos no lloran. Yo concluyo que yo soy débil. Lloro porque a pesar de mis triunfos, todavía me siento como una fracasada. Lloro porque aún yo lecho, aún yo cuido, después de que otros se han rendido. No me enojo nunca. Mientras yo sigo llorando, yo sigo perseverando, yo continúo siendo mejor. En el momento que dejo de llorar, dejaría de ser una humana.
There have been so many triumphs of this trip that I feel like I should have made a list. However, by journaling every day, I will be able to go back and see how far I've come. In addition to my improved ability to speak and understand Spanish, I feel like I have had two major personal triumphs: accepting mediocrity, and embracing what everyone has affectionately started referring to as La Llorona.
Accepting Mediocrity. I have always strived to be an overachiever, but perhaps for different reasons than most. I never wanted to be the best in order to beat anybody else, or make anyone else look bad. In fact, I'm usually the one to encourage others and help them along the way with the secrets of success that I learned the hard way. I never wanted recognition, or awards, or to be rich. I only wanted not to fail. By constantly doing more than I had to, I was ensuring that I couldn't possibly fail. Failure was always the dark shadow that lurked in the corner, the beating from my mom for forgetting to take out the trash, the ridicule from my classmates for losing us the spelling competition on a word that should have been easy, the disapproval from my teachers for yet one more missing homework assignment. So I took all that anxiety and put it to work for me instead of against me. My life was a series of carefully planned do-to lists, constantly arranged and rearranged for maximum effectiveness, to be ahead and above the median of the group, so there was no chance to be in last place.
The problem with this mindset is that in learning a new language, visiting a new country, and experiencing a new culture cannot possibly be done perfectly. I was bound to make mistakes. I was not going to be an overachiever here, no matter how hard I tried. But things are different this time. One major telling indicator is that I haven't checked my to-do list once since we got here. The incessant audio track of “Have to get ___ done by __ o'clock” that played on repeat in my head every minute of the day, stopped, as soon as I woke up in Dos Lunas. For first time, I had been given expressed permission, verbally, to allow myself to be mediocre. I was able to make mistakes and not be punished for them. I was able to forget things and not be judged. I was able to try and fail, and be met with love and encouragement to keep trying.
La Llorona
The second, and probably the most important triumph so far, has been accepting a big part of who I am, despite the opinions and negative judgments of others. When I cried the first time in Guatemala City at the museum, I distinctly remember the first meeting where we were told, “It's okay to cry, as long as you're not crying all the time.” I heard only the last part of that sentence, and felt like I was no longer in a safe place. I do cry all the time. I have always been known as the one who cries all the time which is usually equated with the weakest of the group. So I tried as hard as I could to fight it the whole time I was here, especially since there are those in the group who see crying as weakness. As the weeks went on, though, it became harder and harder to fight. I was arriving home too tired to cry myself to sleep, and I didn't want to deal with the headache that followed the next morning. When I got frustrated at school, I would try to hold it back but the same feelings of failure and frustration still came, and had to come out my eyes somehow. It got to the point where my teacher affectionately nicknamed me “La Llorona,” and it caught on. But on Thursday this week, something magical happened.
I had one of the biggest meltdowns I've had so far this whole trip. It started at the table, with a small exercise on subjunctive tense, but I was frustrated. I was frustrated because I still didn’t get it after 3 days of trying, and still didnt feel like I understood the lesson from the week before, and was running on 4 hours of sleep because I was sick. She told me that she had cancer and she didn't cry about it, so I shouldn't cry about an exercise in Spanish. That made me feel even worse, because now I knew she thought I was weak, and it was accompanied by the frustration of not even being able to tell her why I was frustrated. One thing built up on the other, and the meltdown was bad enough that I had to hide in the bathroom for 30 minutes while I got it all out. The frustration, the failures, the struggle, the pressure, the fatigue, the pain. It was a lot to get rid of. My teacher came to check on me, and it wasn't until she saw me like that, that she understood that the tears were not even remotely about the subjunctive tense exercise. I calmed down enough to go home for the break, redo my makeup, come back, and start writing a story.
I wrote the Spanish story above, first in English, and then she helped me translate it into Spanish. Ironically, it uses both perfect tense and subjunctive tense, both of which had made me cry prior this week. After I was done, I let her read it. It was such a gift that she gave to me. She gave me words to explain my struggle. I'm keeping that essay to explain to Spanish teachers in the future what to expect. She also took me up to the roof and explained to me that I shouldn't be embarrassed about what other people think, because they don't know my struggle and where the tears really come from.
As I was processing that, I was given another unexpected gift, in the form of another student peeing her pants at the fútbol game. We've known about her problem from the beginning and laughed about it with her. But she owned it. Her problem doesn't embarrass her because she chooses to own it and make it part of who she is. I figured, if she can pee her own pants as a grown woman and laugh it off and own it, I can own La Llorona, too. It took something that usually embarrasses me, and gave me power. I only have to be embarrassed about it if I want to. If it helps me cope, then I’m going to take it. It’s much better than trying to fight myself all the time or hold in the pain and let it fester. Now when La Llorona hits, I will let it happen, accept it, and then once I have gotten it all out, move forward again.
