Before I could wave hello, my fingers were flattened into the chest of a cologne-soaked stranger who had ignored my greeting and gone for his own. He kissed my cheek and cuddled my cringing face into the gold chain around his neck as I struggled to breathe and comprehend what was happening.
Not a second after he let go, I looked at my host sister Bela with terror in my eyes. I wanted to scream “Help! Sexual harassment!” but before I opened my mouth, Bela was scolding me for not kissing him back.
Apparently, that invasive embrace was just a standard Brazilian “nice to meet you.” And while I wished I would have been warned, I knew nothing could have prepared me for something so unfamiliar anyway.
Since the moment I said I was going to be an exchange student I’ve had to build a wall against expectations and second-guessing. If I listened to what others expected, I would believe Brazil is too dangerous, Portuguese is too difficult, and I am too weak. And if I listened to my own second-guessing, I would be sitting at home alone watching Netflix because I didn’t want to leave my friends and family. But instead I had no preconceptions and didn’t wait for doubts – I said goodbye, stepped off the plane, leaned in and let him kiss me. Like everything I have experienced so far, I just had to go for it.
Like when I read aloud in Portuguese to my class on the first day, even though I didn’t know how to pronounce any of the words. My tongue stumbled over the sounds but I didn’t stop, I just read louder over the laughter.
Like when the coach pointed at me and I jumped into the middle of a soccer game, even though I’ve never played soccer before – or any team sport.
Or when I took a friend’s hand and danced with him even though I didn’t know the steps that seemed so natural to everyone else or the lyrics that just rolled off their lips.
It’s like swimming in Lake Michigan at the start of summer – you can wait for the water to warm up, if it ever does, or you can run toward it so fast that nothing can stop you until you’ve gone completely under.
And I’m not waiting.