Musings for Saturday, February 27, 2016: That which doesn't kill me only makes me stronger

Hi there, Constant Reader. It’s 2:45 p.m. EST in Miami, and the current temperature is 70 degrees Fahrenheit under sunny skies. With humidity at 30% and the wind blowing at 9 mph from the northwest, the feels-like temperature is 74 degrees Fahrenheit. All in all, it’s a beautiful late winter day in South Florida.

I am to a slow start today with my writing. To be honest, I don’t really feel like writing much; I have not thought about any topics for an Examiner article, not even a movie or book review. And yet, I know in my heart that I must write something. It doesn’t have to be anything spectacular, mind you. It can be something sublime, profane, or even mundane. The writing gods are not as picky as your garden-variety English composition teacher. The literary deities are as content with a well-written article as they are with a relatively insignificant blog entry.  They don’t care what I write about. It could be my shopping list for Winn Dixie – as long as I write.

As I sit here on this cool and sunny late February afternoon, I’m reminded of the 88 autumn days that I spent in Seville, Spain back in 1988. 28 years ago, from late September to a week before Christmas, I participated in the College Consortium for International Studies’ Semester in Spain program. I signed up for 15 credits’ worth of classes – History of Spain, Government of Spain, and nine credits’ worth of Spanish language coursework. In addition, I volunteered to send articles back to Miami-Dade Community College’s South (now Kendall) Campus’ student newspaper as its first official foreign correspondent.

I am remembering this period in my life not just because the skies are a nice shade of cerulean blue and the temperatures are as cool and crisp as they were in Spain during my stay there. Yes, the weather serves as a trigger for my memories, of course. But my 88-day study-abroad trip was also the first time that I was away from home and family for a long period of time, and even though my Seville experience was the best that I had while I was in college, it was also a somewhat stressful time for me.

This was partly because I was, after all, 3,000 miles away from home and in a country where I had no relatives. Prior to 1988, the only times I had been more than 500 miles away from home were the two times that I went to New York City to attend the Eighth and Ninth College Press Conventions as a journalism student. But even on those trips I went with my journalism adviser and several staff members of the campus student paper. In Seville, I was totally on my own, too far away from Miami (and my mother) to receive any assistance from home except for a wire transfer of funds from my U.S. bank account to my Banco Exterior de Espaῆa one in Seville.

So, yes. Even though I was 25 years old and a good college student (I was on the dean’s list regularly for almost my entire stay at Miami-Dade), I was apprehensive at times. I had never been in a situation where I had to pay for rent, balance free time and a college student’s academic responsibilities, and turn in copy as a foreign correspondent – all at the same time. This may have been old hat to my fellow students who were in out-of-state colleges and universities, but not for me. I lived at home and commuted to South Campus on Metrobus five days a week.

And yet, in spite of my (mostly) unwarranted fears, I learned that I’m made of sterner stuff than I (and others) thought. I discovered that I could overcome adversity if I adopted a positive attitude whenever possible. I found out then something that I’m having to relearn now: if I fall down (metaphorically as well as literally), I have to find the inner strength to pick myself up off the ground and get moving.  That mindset not only helped me cope with bouts of homesickness and a cold that bugged me on an on-and -off basis during my last weeks in Seville, but to pass all of my five courses with As and Bs.  I had my fair share of emotional stumbles, true. But as I said earlier, my study abroad experience was one of the best I’ve had in my life.

I don’t like feel-good clichés or sayings popularized on the Internet, but there is one slogan I have adopted as my personal motto: That which does not kill me only makes me stronger.

© 2016 Alex Diaz-Granados. All rights reserved.