On the Edge (of Glory?)

I’m to the point where I need to just jump. I’m standing on the edge of my destiny, and I’m ready for the bungee jump of a lifetime. I mean, obviously not really. I wish I was actually bungee jumping, but I’m just moving to Spain. 

There are plenty of logistical things to be worried about, but I’m ready. I have to talk back to the “dictator” in my head. None of the things I’m worried about are urgent or life-threatening. I’m going to figure out my Amazon packages, my identification card, my work schedule, public transportation, my supplements, and my phone plan. I already have a working Spanish bank account, which is amazing! So now all there is to do is jump. 

And I’m not just jumping into this on a whim. I had this idea almost a year ago, and I’ve been working and thinking and preparing and deciding since then. And the Lord has been in the details! Let me tell you about the whole journey and how I got to this spot. 

Ok, here goes: once upon a time I met Cristian Maldonado on Mutual. It was a great experience from the start. No, I didn’t go seeking out anyone from across the world. Yes, I did have the paid version so I could see that he had liked me. Yes, I liked him. And yes, I know he is very good looking. As for our language skills, no actually. We both had VERY low respective English and Spanish abilities when we met. I never would have continued messaging him unless he had started with the trusty Google translate. But then he was fun to talk to and that was that. Yes, we’ve been dating and talking every day for ten months, and yes our language skills have grown incredibly. 

Yes, I know it’s all so crazy. Yes, I know I’ve dating guys from other countries before. And I know this is not necessarily the most typical route. No, I am not sorry. Instead, I’m really grateful and happy and excited. We both have some past relationship trauma that we are working on and dating is scary, but that’s a story for another post. The point is, I have an awesome boyfriend who lives in Spain, but you know that. 

So the story continues. We started talking every day in October last year, and I decided to buy a flight to Spain to visit him around Thanksgiving. The flight was for February since I had a weeklong school break then. So I bought it, and amazingly, as the over-sharer that I am, I didn’t tell anyone in my family until after Christmas. Hyrum knows me so well, and he actually guessed it. I didn’t need any rational minds getting in the way of my wild ideas to go meet a boy in Spain. 

Since the beginning, my family has come a long way and has done a great job of supporting my choices even if they aren’t really the choices they would make for themselves. They have experienced a lot of secondary relationship trauma right along with me, and they want to protect me. I love them for that.

Anyway, I went to Spain for a week in February and it was a dream. Cristian took such sweet, amazing care of me, and I FELL in love. With him and Spain. Lol Before I boarded my flight back to Georgia, I booked another flight to Spain for Spring break. I went again in April, and it was another wonderful trip. It was a little less magic-Spain-vacation core and a little more real life, which was a good thing. 

During all of this, I decided that I wanted to try to teach English in Spain. I don’t remember the exact timing, but I had also been dreaming of going back to Hawaii. Let me also be clear that I loved Georgia and had many thoughts of staying there longer too. So at the same time I was applying for Spain, I was applying for PhD at the University of Hawaii and a teaching job at BYU-Hawaii. When I didn’t get either one of those, I felt like the Lord was telling me “no” or at least “not now” about Hawaii, so I carried on with the Spain plans. 

Cristian and I knew that if our relationship was ever going to go anywhere we would need, and we obviously wanted, to live in the same town...and continent. He really wanted to come to the US. And yes, he knows that I want to ultimately end up here. But no, that wasn’t a good initial idea. The last thing we want is anyone getting deported. So I decided to try to come to Spain if it were possible. 

Cristian still wants, and needs, to visit the United States. He met my parents when we came to Italy (that was our third and last week together in June). He did SO well with them and with his English. Then he left his passport in our airbnb in Italy, and I had to figure out how to mail it back to him from an Italian post office. That was an adventure. I did it right, but it got lost in the mail anyway. He had a visa appointment lined up and a plan to come visit the US in August, but because of the lost passport, he couldn’t. Now he has a new appointment and is trying again. The dream is that he comes home with me for Christmas! 

I looked into a few programs to teach English in Spain, and most of them cost money. They are for rich freshly-graduated girls who want to travel, spend money, teach a little English, and have an adventure somewhere before they buckle down to real life. I really wanted, and want, something more sustainable. 

Then I found NALCAP (North America Language and Cultural Assistant Program). It’s a program sponsored by the Spanish government for people to come, mostly from North America but from some other countries too, and help promote the English language as well as cultural exchange in Spain schools. So you’re pretty much on your own as far as getting your visa and getting set up in Spain, but it’s free. And of course they pay you to teach. 

It’s also really huge. Like 4000 people do it each year. It’s a little bit of a first-come, first-serve situation. As long as you have a bachelor’s degree and some basic stuff in your application, you can do it. So, honestly, I’m overqualified with my two TESOL degrees, so we love that. 

You also don’t necessarily get to choose your region or school. I was so, so lucky, or I should say blessed! I had to rank the regions of Spain that I preferred and say what size of town I wanted. In April, I found out that I had gotten a placement in the program right in Cristian’s town, Logroño. It is one of the smallest regions in Spain, La Rioja, and he lives in the only big city. It’s also not a top tourist destination, so there was still room for a Clarissa! 

I already have an apartment that’s a ten minute walk from his house, and my school, which is a high school (really like 7th-12th grade equivalent) is only a 20 minute bus ride across the city. So hooray! 

So before I even had my official placement, I had to start applying for my Visa. And holy cow, it was crazy! It was through the Spanish consulate in LA. I went to the LA one because I still had a Utah drivers license. I was always worried they would find out I didn’t actually live in Utah anymore and deny me, but they didn’t. 

First, I needed an FBI background check which I got at a post office in South Carolina. Then I had to send it to Washington DC in the mail and wait EIGHT weeks for them to send it back to me with an apostille, which is like a notary on an international level. I had to include a return envelope, so I had them return it to me in Nevada when I got here for the summer. Then I had to pay a Sworn translator who is registered in Spain to translate it into Spanish for them. That was all for them to really, really know that I’m not a criminal. It also came with a little spiral-ring staple that I couldn’t undo or the whole thing would be invalid. I guarded all those papers with my life! 

I also needed a medical certificate with a stamp and all this other stuff, but I won’t go into too much detail. We’ll move the story along for you. 

That gets me to my visa appointment. And it is so hard to get an appointment! Luckily, I was pretty early and on top of this process, so I was ready to make mine earlier than most people. But of course they were all full, so I had to check this horrible website like a million times, until finally one morning in June I checked and all the new July appointments were available. They were gone within six hours, but luckily one was mine! 

So I bravely took all my documents organized in a white binder off to LA. I had accidentally booked my rental car for the wrong time and it was gone by the time I arrived, so I had to walk like 30 minutes with my suitcase

on my broken foot to get to a new rental car, and then the key fob holder was broken and I lost that rental car key. But we were on the phone with my dear sister Carolina who is on her mission in Orlando, and she prayed that I would find it within the hour. And I DID! AND, after all the bureaucracy horror stories I had heard, they accepted my documents!! I had insurance just in case that I wasn’t supposed to need, and so many other extra things to be super safe.  Well, it worked. 

Then only five weeks later, I got an email that my visa was ready for pick up. “They don’t mail it to you?” you may be asking. No, they do not. So I flew once again to LA. I had the same flight attendants in and out of the Provo airport in the morning and the evening. They handed me my passport with a visa inside, and I wanted to cry for joy. That thing is my most prized possession! 

So, now I have a school and an apartment (with one roommate girl from Spain and the other from Pennsylvania) and a bunch of after school tutoring families who I am going to try to tutor in the afternoons (they all live kind of far away, but I think it will work). I have a visa and a bank account and a really nice boyfriend who has been collecting packages and finding me a good phone plan. I have an audition for the choir of Logroño, and I think they’re actually good. I have the church.

I will overcome the government, bureaucracy hurdles that still await, I will go through the stages of culture shock, I will learn and adjust and make and deepen friendships, I will relearn how to do so many things, I will hike the hill of Spanish every day, I will literally walk a lot on my newly healed/healing foot, I will become a bike/public transportation pro, I will call my family, I will miss things from home, I will write on my blog, I will explore gorgeous Spain, I will spend time with my love.. in person... every day, and I will be so glad I did all of it! 

Life is not about comfort and convenience. It’s also not about finding the tallest mountain and gritting your teeth and climbing it. It’s about choices. It’s about being led. And I know I am being led by God. He’s given me indescribable peace knowing that this is the mountain for me. 

I am ready to jump off this mountain. I hope that Spain will catch me. I think it will. And I KNOW that the Lord will be my wings and my parachute (oh wait, it’s a bungee jumping analogy, my bad!) and my soft place to land. 

He sent us here to earth get out of bed and do something. Hopefully it’s something good that leads to more and more good. I think I’m on the journey. 

So I will enjoy one more quiet afternoon in peaceful September Starr Valley, one more bath in my mom’s big tub, one more evening in my big recliner, and one more hug of my Grandma. Then I will jump! See you on the other side. 💓✈️