The city that never slept

It was summer 2007, my parents had separated a couple months earlier, and I was about to start 2nd grade in a new town, on the outside of Tampa, Fl. I didn’t know what was going on at the time, I didn’t know why my parents were unhappy being together but now that I look back I realize it was for the better and everything happens for a reason so to speak. Love is like a drug, it’ll make you do things you’ve never done before. I saw first-hand what my mom was going through, I was young yes but sometimes in life when something happens to you it doesn’t matter what age you are it can leave you scarred for the rest of your life. We moved to New York thinking we could live a better life but what we didn’t know is the pain it would bring us in the future.

When we first arrived to New York I hated it, I can hear the sirens from the police cars, I can smell the odor from the sewers, and the loud train tracks running all night. But I couldn’t complain the buildings were so tall and eye-catching. I thought to myself, there are so many buildings here I found it hard to believe that people were actually capable of putting them up, but also knocking them down. The buildings look like they had fallen from the sky and landed in one spot, where else but in New York City. When we first moved there I felt very overwhelmed by people walking and talking in many different languages and being small as I was, I was always scared I would get lost with all the pushing and people saying excuse me, it was insane to think I can live here. After we moved to New York, my brothers and I were forced to start in a new school with new people. Of course, I was terrified because I was just beginning the 1st grade.

I would hear my mom sobbing from across our two-bedroom apartment, continuously asking herself if the decision she made of moving to New York was a wise one. Witnessing my mom’s pain took a toll on me. I was too young to understand her pain or to know how I could help her. My mother protected my two brothers and I, as a mama bear would protect her cubs. Regardless of what she was facing, my mother always kept a positive attitude about our situation. Even considering everything she had to overcome, she managed to be the strongest string keeping our family tied together. After 5 years we moved to Orlando Fl, I consider this move my family’s life changing move because it changed so many things in my life. This move set the stage for an entirely new life for me. Moving almost 20 hours away from the only place I called home and a place my family and I did not want to be at the same time. Looking back at the situation and everything that happened during that time I am happy with everything that happened not because of what we went through but because we had to go through some hard times to get to where my family and I are right now. As I make my way down the city street, I feel overwhelmed by people walking and talking in scores of different languages. People with looks that I have never seen before. People that look somewhat bizarre to me. Everyone is different in their ownere way of style. Let me tell you something, this big place called “ New York” is the capital of all the new fashions and old fads.