Tomorrow marks my 100th straight day of practicing Spanish on Duolingo. It has been 100 days of verb conjugations, remembering things I supposedly learned at 14, and using my phone For Good. 100 days ago is also the day I decided to abandon Instagram. Not because it was making me feel bad, but because I started to feel weird about how much I knew about people I went to highschool with. I shouldn’t know your boyfriend’s dog’s name if the last time we texted was on an iPhone 2.
So 100 days with no Instagram, replaced by 100 days of daily Spanish lessons. You could say it changed everything about me as a person. But it didn’t. If anything I just know a lot more about how to tell you if it is raining, will rain, or has rained. I took 6 years of Spanish in middle and highschool and it didn’t do a lot. My crush was in my 8th grade class and my self-chosen Spanish name was Yolanda so I had to train my ear to respond to Yolanda coming from a devilishly handsome 2nd string junior varsity quarterback. Time was precious and focusing on academics was not my strong suit in my everlasting quest for adolescent love.
Also, I was too afraid to speak and embarrass myself. I did that enough in one language. The first time I remember using Spanish confidently was at a restaurant in Madrid in 2017 with my friends who all took French. I ordered bread for the table. Pan con tomate, actually. Toasted bread with garlic and oil is universal.
Most recently, I helped a woman get on the right train. This was scary because had I messed up, I would have been a white lady in downtown Brooklyn who sent an innocent mother and her child to Manhattan for no reason.
When the clock strikes midnight I will do a lesson and then it will have been 100 days of keeping a commitment. Even on days I didn’t feel like doing it, I did it because it was an important part of my routine. Like putting on sunscreen or performing a blood sacrifice (flossing.)
This short story was meant to teach you that you can do anything you put your mind to. And that in 100 days, you can change your life. If not, you can at least try cambiar tu vida.