I love my job. I love the challenge of teaching in Spanish, helping my students navigate language learning, and immersing myself in a world of words. But by the time I get home, my bilingual brain is fried. Like, “error 404: brain not found” levels of exhaustion.
The thing is, Spanish isn’t actually my first language—I learned it, just like my students. Falling in love with the journey of learning a second language is why I am who I am today. However, I now spend all day teaching almost entirely in Spanish, my brain is constantly running on overdrive, flipping between languages, fine-tuning my responses, and making sure I don’t accidentally mix up words in ways that will haunt me forever. And then, just when I think I’ll get a break, I walk out of school and straight into my car, where my three children (who never stop talking) are waiting. Well, two of them never stop talking—my oldest is usually nose-deep in a book, blissfully unaware of the verbal chaos erupting around him…No complaints there.
Between student conversations, lesson explanations, and the endless stream of “Mami, guess what?” from the backseat, there is absolutely no decompression time. No pause button. No quiet. Just full-speed chatter from sunup to sundown. This is why I get up every morning at 3:30am. Yes – I know. Don’t start. I am definitely a morning person.
By the time I walk through the door, I need exactly 10 minutes of silence. Just ten. A brief moment to let my brain cool off before I can function like a proper human again. Otherwise, I end up pretending I’m fully present while internally buffering like a slow-loading webpage.
The bilingual brain is a beautiful, powerful thing. But some days, it just needs a minute. So if you ever see me staring blankly into space after a long day, just know—I’m rebooting. Please hold.
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