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Breaking Boundaries

By: Matthew Miller

The sun? Melting my skin. The palm trees? Their leaves being gracefully blown by the wind. My mood? Not a care in the world as I was letting all of my stress swim away in the warm lagoon pool around me. My body? Sticky with sunscreen caked all over my face, arms, chest, and legs. To say that I was likely to bake in an oven from the intense Caribbean sun was an understatement; however, I did not really care – I was on cloud nine. For context, I was on a family spring break cruise after a school semester of ripping my hair out from AP exams, staying up late cramming information in my brain in hopes of performing well on exams, and shivering in the Wisconsin winter. With the draining semester being over, the cruise I was on gave me the wonderful opportunity to forget the academic tension and instead experience the warmth, charm, and vibrance of San Juan, Puerto Rico – a destination I had been wanting to experience for quite some time with my interest in the Spanish language.

The more I was relaxing in the glistening pool, I felt as if I was surrendering myself to it. I could hear the rhythms of a Latin band while the irresistible fumes of the food traveled to my nose. I continued my semi-successful attempt of letting all of the anxiety of a perfectionist student in junior year of high school exit my body. After grasping difficult course loads such as AP Chemistry, AP Spanish Language, and Accelerated English courses along with the terrible social anxiety of being a teenager in a small high school, the opportunity to unwind, close my eyes, feel the sun overtake my body, and forget about the rest of the world was a treat. I was loving every second of it. Then, of course, in typical fashion, my father had to interrupt my one minute of peace from the constant rattling in my brain for the past seven months.

“Matthew,” he shouted across the pool. “Let’s get out of the pool so we can grab some of the lunch that our shore excursion provided us!” 

Ugh. Of course. I suppose I will never have time to relax. 

I looked my dad’s way and replied by nodding my head in approval even though my heart did not agree. I wanted to let the warm water surround me forever. 

After getting out of the pool and drying off with a towel, I made my way over to the lunch buffet with my family, my feet sizzling on the concrete during the journey. The view of the swaying palm trees and the dark blue Atlantic ocean took my mind off of the burning my feet were experiencing. As I took a first glance at what food was offered, my mouth dropped. There was authentic Spanish rice, black beans, chicken, and local desserts – a typical Puerto Rican lunch. I wanted to stuff my face with all of it. I grabbed my plate of food, found a table, and began immersing myself into the delectable plate in front of me. Per the norm, just after the rest of my family sat down, my dad felt the need to interject once more. 

“Matthew, I wanted to tell you about something.”

Oh, God, what now… 

I nodded for him to continue with his thoughts. 

“While you were swimming in the pool, I had a chance to speak to one of the resort’s security guards, and she happens to be learning English. She is super nice!” 

I know exactly where he is going with this. 

“I told her all about how you are learning Spanish, and she wanted me to bring you by so you can practice your Spanish with her,” he finished off. 

Great. My stomach fell to the floor. My heart sank deep inside of my body. Instantly, all of my nerves were shot. I was going to look like a clown in front of the security guard. I wanted to go back to the sparkling, warm pool and live there forever instead of making a fool out of myself. The whole purpose of the cruise vacation was to get away from my academic side even though I did have a strong appreciation for Spanish. 

While my nervousness was consuming my entire body, there was a fair reason why I felt the way I did. While I had taken an AP course in Spanish that exposed me to more authentic Spanish material, I never had the opportunity to speak with natives where I live. In Racine, Wisconsin, unfortunately, there is not much diversity, and where I went to high school was not any better. Throughout my time in high school, I found that my incredible Spanish instructors also learned the language in their respective high schools, and they decided to pursue the language in college as well. So, they were not natives who had grown up knowing the true authentic language with the true accent.

The other factor that did not help was the fact that I was about to dive into language immersion in Puerto Rico of all places, an island that is known for having the fastest Spanish speakers in the world. Yikes. That fact did not help my wave of panic to my Midwestern self who lacked any true Spanish immersion and was surrounded by corn fields all day.

I lost all appetite for the food that was in front of me. I did not want to talk to anybody. All I wanted to do was return to the alluring lagoon pool, close my eyes, and pretend that my dad never spoke the nonsense out of his mouth. However, as always, in my dad’s typical fashion, he forced me on the fantastic adventure of speaking to the security guard.

We were off as we began our journey of approximately five-hundred feet past shimmering pools, relaxed tourists, and Spanish advertisements to where the security guard was residing. 

“Matthew,” he started as the sensation of a thousand needles from the concrete started to sear back into my feet. “You need to have more confidence in yourself. I think you forget how good you are at Spanish!” 

He could tell that sweat was dripping down my face, my lips were quivering, and I spoke short worded phrases – all components of when I feel stressed, but, what does he know about my level of Spanish because he is not me? Sure, I studied Duolingo for hours during the pandemic, practiced writing in Spanish for fun, and excelled through all of my Spanish classes in high school, but I was still a teenager who freaked out at what other people thought and severely lacked self confidence in my abilities at anything. If I failed and looked idiotic, would other people around me judge? Would my parents feel bad that they got me into this experience in the first place? The whole cycle of adolescent doubt was running laps in my brain, and it did not plan on stopping its marathon.

Suddenly, my dad spotted her over by the resort’s gift shop. Yes, she was definitely a security guard. She had jet black hair, a radiant smile, and the unfortunate reality of wearing an all-black outfit in the scorching sun. However, my dad was not wrong – she did have a positive aura around her as she recognized and smiled at my dad instantly. My stomach was not at rock bottom anymore with her bubbly personality, but it was still in rough shape. 

Before I even had time to analyze my surroundings fully, my father entered his role as a complete dad. 

“¡Hola!” he began saying to her while my face began to twitch at his extremely American sounding Spanish. “This is my son that I was telling you about earlier who is practicing his Spanish!” 

She lit up like a Christmas tree, and she went full throttle on her Spanish. She did not hold back, and I was blowing away in the wake at the rate she was rattling her native tongue off at. However, to my surprise, I understood everything she was saying. Then, she ended off with a question for me.

Oh God. It’s my turn to talk now. This is it. 

My turn to go down. My turn to explode into a million pieces. 

Somehow, I got myself together within a few seconds. I began to make noise from my mouth. My whole family was surrounding me. My heart was beating out of my chest. My head was still covered in sweat and sunscreen. The sun was beating relentlessly down on us. While all of that was going on, I was not just speaking Spanish back to the security guard, I was rattling it off perfectly. As I continued to reciprocate an advanced level of Spanish as a sixteen year old, her face lit up even more. Personally, I thought her electrical fuse that was powering her light was about to explode.

Under the scorching heat, my family surrounding me, my father crying in amazement, the smell of authentic Puerto Rican food in the distance, the sounds of Latin music, and the commotion of spring break tourism, the radiant security guard and I had an entire fluent, native conversation for over twenty minutes straight. Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of building a relationship in a different language. Twenty minutes of creating a stronger foundation in the new language I was passionate about. Twenty minutes of making my family proud. Twenty minutes of boosting my self-confidence in a way that made me feel like I could do anything. I could move.