Three… Two... O–WAIT!

Today was my first time being alone in this country, to discover Santa Fe, to learn how to get around, and to appreciate being truly independent.

I had a list of things that I had to get done: contact my health insurance for international care, go to the grocery store, find a gym and buy a membership, read some of my Spanish book to practice my accent and pronunciation, buy a pre-paid SIM card to acquire an argentine number, and reach out to my advisors about class registration.

I started the day feeling excited an confident. I was keeping busy, getting shit done. But as my day slowed, my mind inversely began to race. I considered all the things that I had purposely told myself to ignore before (well.. “ignore” maybe isn’t the right word – perhaps “let simmer”?). But when the implications of my situation became more relevent, my anxiety set in; and it set in HARD.

I tend to chose not to disregard my anxieties. I believe acknowledging the things that make me uncomfortable is an efficient way of finding a way of changing the situation in order to create a more comfortable one. This is why I simply let myself think about all the things that were making me anxious: the language barrier, the distance from home, the lack of recognizability, the culture clashes, the advanced level chemical engineering classes in which I would enroll (again, in fluent Spanish :0), the difficulty of creating personal relationship from scratch, etc.

But as I continued to dump these emotions, I realized that none of these things actually scared me. In fact, they sparked my excitement. I rationalized every single anxiety by defining them as discrete and objective “challenges”. Challenges are exciting to me because they act as clearly defined milestones that stand out in our long, arbitrary life. They are the manifestation of growth. And how cool is it that I get to control when and where I experience these challenges? SO COOL!

I may not be 100% ready to get slapped in the face by these challenges all at once, but who is? I’m excited to see how I handle the situation and I’m going to make a conscious effort to reflect on the experience, observing the things that propel my success and those that stall it.

Alright, let’s try that again: Three… Two… One... GO!

Here is a picture of some really cool trees that I took in a park in Buenos Aires.

Staring at the fractals calmed me.