Can you hear it? Or can you feel it? That imminent moment when your dreams are about to end, and when your alarm is getting ready to wake you up abruptly. Congratulations we are awake now we only need to take a shower, oh wait, we did that last night.

It’s a dream of any writer to somehow end up in New York, and here I was. Saratoga Springs. No crowds or busy streets or subway terminals. The first thing that stuck out to me was the insistent rain and how the trees stretched into clouds of fog that seemed stuck in the sky.

I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere. There were a few years in Puerto Rico where I felt like that’s where I was from – I ate guayaba and drank coquito for Christmas, I climbed quenepa and mango trees, and I pronounced all my r’s like l’s. I was as Boricua as the coqui’s that kept me up late into the night, singing along to my neighbor’s salsa.

My Grandmother told a tale about the devil in disguise. He loved to dance with beautiful women at parties and his true darkness was masked by his charismatic lure. No one ever looked down at his hooves because his gaze was hypnotic. His eyes looped like the cycle of birth and death. The chemistry between Satan and the woman became so noxiously intoxicating that even if she knew his truth, she wouldn't pull away. Her primitive animal instincts were silenced, after all, he was a great dancer. I am a five-foot-tall brunette in Doc Martens, and he was drunk again. He is 6 '3 and I swear the sun didn't exist until I met him, and I wasn't born until he saw me. I wasn't born until he looked at me. After that first glance, I understood why domesticated dogs howl at a moon that does recognize them. It was the yearning. It was a Friday night and I found myself in a restroom stall covered with an obscene amount of faded vinyl stickers. I looked down at my pantyhose, they had a tear. The sink didn't have any soap but instead a bottle of hand sanitizer that smelled just like tequila, or maybe I smelled like tequila. I didn't think the swap was very fair either way. Bathroom mirrors always have the worst graffiti etched into them. Anything to blur my reflection. When I returned to him, he probably had three shots of Rumpz while I was in the stall. I blamed myself for being gone just a little too long. He smiled at me. With one smile he was forgiven. One smile always covered a multitude of sins. His wicked charm had me in a state of frantic dependency. The rising cortisol levels had me bouncing like a red rubber ball on its wooden paddle. The hit pushed me away, only to feel myself getting pulled back at an even quicker speed. I was on a string. It wasn't like being a marionette, it was like a staple keeping me from launching into oblivion. But, not tonight. I could make tonight a good night. Everything appeared glistening, everyone loved us together. I lost my fingers in his curls as my lips blossomed in his. The shitty bar was playing Interpol. He loved to pull me to his chest and sing to me. I would cover my face to hide my beam. I lived on his lap and in his denim jacket. We always closed out the bar and around this hour I would always notice the light leave his eyes. When we got in the car, I tried to hold his hand. He pulled away like I had something infectious. I noticed caked powder in his right nostril and said nothing. It wasn't worth it tonight. The car was silent, and I just stared down at my boots. I couldn't look at my phone because I knew he would just throw it out the window. I saw a smashed skunk on the side of the highway, I couldn't utter a word. The white lines ran on infinitely. When we got back to our dim lit apartment, he went on a drunken rant about why my mother never hugged me. I was unlovable, he said. I loved the attention. I stared at an old cardboard pizza box, and he grabbed both sides of my arms until they turned blue. I was lifted to eye level, to make sure I couldn't escape his stare. Then he dropped me like I was covered in hot tin foil. I held myself in fetal position and didn't register the stiff kick to the middle of my back until it was over. I was a master of floating elsewhere. The worst part was that he never remembered anything in the morning. That's what he used to say at least. It was my own personal altercation with a ghost. Maybe, I wasn't really there either. After a few hours I noticed soft blue light entering through warped window blinds. I laid on cheap ceramic tile and remembered my grandmother's tale. At that moment, I realized that maybe we didn’t know we’d danced with the devil until after the fact. You can always see their hooves from the ground.

It was around August of 2021. Moving to another city was like taking a window panel full of photos & wiping them clean off. It was like taking a glass & shattering it into millions of pieces. It’s ironic, isn’t it? No matter how many times you move, no matter how many times you start to gain some sort of balance in life, life itself takes it away like gusts of wind, going at 100 mile per hour speeds you wouldn’t even begin to imagine. Overall, moving was hard. Ever since the pandemic, my family & I have had discussions about moving to El Paso. We had many reasons to do so, the common denominator mostly coming down to family. Even so, I couldn’t complain. As much as I wanted to smash my head against a boulder, as much as I would’ve liked to just take a metal chair & WWE it to a next-door neighbor, I chose to move here. Regardless of my complaints, I can’t help but think of my father’s words as we drove off in my family’s navy-blue ford explorer. It would be great to start new opportunities & be with family in El Paso, wouldn’t you agree? As his words swarm through my mind, I couldn’t help but agree with him. The prospect of having/creating new opportunities & being close to family became so compelling to me, that my decision to pack my bags & move out became my sealed fate. As we arrived during the scorching heat that was the month of August, I was not prepared for the underwhelming feeling that coursed through me as I stared at the area that was El Paso. Dry, just dry. It was really the first impression that I had received when I saw the land that was known as “El Cuco.” To be frank, the first few months had been exciting. Going to new restaurants, meeting new people, being in a new house, seeing family, all great, right? It didn’t take long for the excitement to dissolve away. If I could choose between moving to El Paso or moving to Egypt, Egypt wins by a long shot. At least you could get nice photos of the great pyramids instead of photos of dry grounds. My house couldn’t have been any different, as it’s the house I still currently live in. A 2-story, 4 bedroom, 3 ½ bathroom house. Peachy. Living in El Paso is, & continues to be, a roller coaster. The weather: bipolar as ever. The roads: cracked, intricately shaped & connected as a newly fresh artwork from Picasso. As an avid traveler, El Paso made sure I saw plenty of them. Even if El Paso didn’t exceed the grand expectations I had conjured up in my mind, what made me really dislike moving here is simple: fear. Most people don’t tell you what is on the other side of the fence when it comes to moving. I was afraid. A coward if you like. Fear seeped into me the moment I arrived at our new house. It clawed at me, its scratches leaving doubts in my mind as I pondered on every decision I’ve made up to this point in my life. It turned me from an excited 20-year-old to a shaky leafy child who had no idea what they wanted to do in this new chapter of their life. Would I make it here? Will I find a Job? Will I make friends? Would people even like me? Two years in & those questions haunt me to this day. Don’t get me wrong, El Paso has its charm. Its high mountains & perilous terrain would make any visitor or traveler come down for its delightful sights. The food & shops can enchant customers for days. Being next to Juarez, the great Juan Gabriel’s childhood city, adds the icing to the cake. Despite all of this, El Paso remains dry.

This is dedicated to my family and my ancestors, especially to my mother, mi rayito de sol olor a Verano eterno de los ochentas, descansa en paz (1963-2023). Thank you International Student Sampler $6:06AM. All Monday mornings are restless days, which means, I conditioned my brain for homework, chores and possible surprises for the rest of the weekend. I was hungry before I woke up, my room was the oasis in the middle of the desert, a cold cave where there is no light bothering my sleep. My room is the only cool and quiet place in the house until I opened the door. Coq au café $7:11AM. The rest of the house smells like coffee and cinnamon, such smell guided me to the kitchen: a yellow room full of gallos and vacas decorations, colorful windows and curtains, old paintings that I did when I was little, and some background noises that were coming from the TV; a random movie that nobody was watching. Mi abuela was making her famous salsa verde, and my uncle was sitting there, reading the newspaper. I entered to the kitchen walking straight to the coffee machine, forgetting to say good morning. “Se dice buenos días mijita, para que tengas un buen día.” My abuela said. “Buenos días abuela, lo siento, estoy algo dormida todavía.” I sighed ¿Ya se tomó su café?” “Pues ya mija, ya… pero pues, sírveme otro, que le hace.” Then, I heard my mother’s heels from upstairs. She was always singing in the morning, because she’s the rising sun of the house. Her voice dominated the room before she even appeared. She was wearing a colorful dress and heels, heavy accessories decorated her ears, wrists and neck. My father, who was more like me, forgot to say good morning. The first thing he did after he saw me serving coffee to my abuela, was ask for a cup of coffee too. I did what he said and a little gesture of love, a good easy-peasy Mexican breakfast. Driving License Burger with no car bun $7:37AM I like to cook for others, but time was cooking me out. In addition to the sunny-side eggs, I pre-heated some beans and a quesadilla that I made for my mother and me. I also served a glass of water for her, which she appreciated with a smile, and she commented to me she was going to the hospital again. She was not a slow eater, but that day she was tired. She didn’t want to show it, but at the same time she was trying to relax, because she beat cancer once again. I served two cups of coffee for my father and me. We were waiting for my mother, and we initiated a conversation about finances that led to jobs, then grad school, and concluded on the reason why I still don’t have a car. That’s the menu of my everyday life, most of the days are only coffee and bananas, but I know the special soup of the day is someone saying good morning, and having a conversation to forget the pass of time and that the fine line between success or failure even exists. 2 x 2 x 2 $7:55AM While my father was driving me to school, I watched Juarez waking up late. There’re no cars at seven thirty, but too much traffic at eight. The “great” gray old city is like an oven; pre-heated in the first hour morning, the cars are the pan, and we, the people, are the food cooked by the heat of the sun as we cross the beacon, I mean, the border. That explains why everyone keeps getting into the line without respecting it in the first place. They don’t want to be overcooked by time. My father is not always generous, and sometimes the people are extra spicy, and that makes me think, how many different kinds of lives are crossing the border? For me, it was because of my education. I still don’t speak English so fluently, but my mother once told me if I had the chance to be bilingual, I would have more options to get more job offers internationally speaking. I’m a slow learner like my father claimed he once was, but I know I can be better tomorrow, I have the privilege of time and money saved in my bank account. Tres Leches Pancakes $8:08AM “—He came over by surprise, did you invited him to our house?” my mother said in the middle of a conversation, we were still in the line. She was talking about one of my cousins. “You know he’s like that.” My father replied. “But he said that Venezuelan people are thieves, criminals and desperate people who doesn’t know what a real job looks like, but they also are going to steal our jobs. So, I said to him how dare you! you’re Mexican American itself, your parents are immigrants as well, you didn’t even go to college even if you had your damn privilege!” My father sighed and shook his head, smiling. “Mi reina, are you sure you said that to him…? —” “No, of course not, I didn’t say a word.” She said, laughing. “He doesn’t really know what it feels like to abandon everything in order to have a better life…” my father replied, and both went silent. At that moment, I thought about what my father’s life was. He was not American, he was from Tuxpan, Veracruz, a proud harocho, which makes me part fish, like a real mermaid. He had a hard decision to make in order to be successful. He chose to live alone in Mexico City, to obtain a full scholarship in the IPN (Instituto Politécnico Nacional), instead of continuing to work and own a PEMEX’s oil plant, like my grandfather and my great-grand father did. I know my father was on the brink of death because of that job, and I know that he saw a lot of things too. After graduation, he went to Juarez because of a friend, while he was waiting to be accepted in some university in Russia. They were offering a full scholarship for grad-school for the recommended graduates, and my father was one of them. They were offering a great scholarship in nuclear chemistry. Russia responded, but they had another offer (nuclear chemistry was already filled), and explained that they didn’t see my father’s submission early, but they still were interested in him, and offered him petrochemistry instead. He hated everything related to PEMEX’s or petroleum, so his final decision was to decline the offer. He decided to marry my mother instead who he had been dating for just a month. “You see why the necessity of your education, Jocelyn Yared, are you hearing?” My mother said. “Yes mother,” I replied coming back to earth “I like school already, don’t worry that much, I’m not like my ungrateful cousin.” The Ultimate Choco-cruel Reality Cake $3:33PM After class, I waited for my older sister to pick me up. I was on the sidewalk on Mesa Street, close to McDonalds, I sat under a tree and overheard a conversation. I wasn’t planning to, and didn’t want to, but my phone was almost dead, and they were talking too loudly. I saw an old man grabbing a boy’s shoulder who seemed to be in his late twenties He seemed very patient with the old man, but he wanted to say something, and he detained himself by pressing his lips together, perhaps he tried to interrupt what the old man wanted to say. “Feel my words, both cities are like an order menu: ride, die, or both. You chose to ride because you wanted to. Let’s say you got a motorcycle, esa es tu educación. You got the helmet, that is me and your grandmother, you got the insurance that is your double nationality, mijo, that's being privileged right there. I had no options, my feet needed some shoes, my hands needed to work, and other mouths needed to be fed. You choose a life where crossing everyday might be very different from someone else! For you it is because of la novia, los amigos, la familia, tu madre, but for me? It was a necessity. I was wet crossing the borders, but still, I got so blessed that now I live here with tu abuela. There are people that have to work, not the kind of work that they might want, others have a family, and only see them in the end of the weekends. And dying is not an option, mijo, but unfortunately some people die by narcotráfico, even if your young little eyes haven’t seen it yet, and hopefully you will not. Some people die in a fire at immigration facility, and a lot of people celebrated such thing to happen, and I don’t know if this better or worse, but some people die by those who just woke up, decided to take a weapon and drive several hours to just go and shoot people in a store. People that were innocent, just like you and me, imagined that, like you and me. In all of these cases, the victims are the same: children, woman, man, it doesn’t matter. Violence doesn’t discriminate against anyone, and discrimination exists even within our own, in Juarez or El Paso and beyond. So, I wonder, who do you think will taste such death? Not everyone in both cities might swallow it, but why do I feel like everyone, especially the young, looks away from that? All I ask you, mijo, is to look, to observe, to be grateful, show some kindness, and please, feel my words and eat them, chew and taste it. Like when you were little, and I told you that you needed to eat your vegetables. Every vegetable you eat has vitamins that make you stronger, this is the same. Everyone has a story behind why they cross the border, mijo, so don’t ask questions, don’t assume they don’t know what they are doing, who are we to judge, really? All you need to know is that they all have stories to tell just like you and me, so hear them and don’t forget them, swallow your pride, and digest my words, because that flavor, that bitterness, that is the aftertaste from the past that you don’t want to repeat.”

There were times when I wanted to escape from it all. Nothing too drastic; just thinking of taking a day, a week, or even a month off always came to mind. For some reason, the beginning of 2022 felt extremely exhausting to me. Knowing spring break was coming, it felt like the perfect time to relax before going to a 4-hour drive back home to spend the days off. At home, they asked the usual questions: How’s school? How’s life? Do you have a stable job yet? Have you gone to any bars? How close are you to graduation? The same old, same old. What I wanted, what I needed, was a change of pace and scenery. With that in mind, I booked a stay at a small hotel in Ruidoso for a few days, three days to be exact. I’ve never done spontaneous plans like this before and doing something at the last minute was challenging but fun. Before I went, I had to let my parents know I’d take a few days to go to Ruidoso; that way, they would know where I had disappeared to. I also called at work and told them I couldn’t come in because I went to visit my family. Spending my days in Ruidoso was great. The cold weather, hiking, walking around the main street, entering the local stores, and seeing deer and elks in the forest; everything delighted me. Luckily, there were no signs of bears; otherwise, this story would have taken a rather dramatic turn or wouldn’t been told at all. The nights, however, were something else. Driving was a nightmare as no lights were on the roads. One time, my car almost fell to the side of the road or crashed into a tree. But what was stranger was how the darkness messed with my brain; you think you see things that aren’t there. Before I knew it, my last night in Ruidoso came. Everything had gone according to plan; the only thing left was to sleep, and then be back tomorrow morning. That’s what I would’ve wanted, but I woke up out of nowhere at 8 a.m., to be precise. Laying on my bed, I could only move my neck, but I couldn’t make any sounds; not even could open my mouth to scream. After staring at the ceiling for a few seconds, I looked to my right, and there it was, something that would make anyone scream at the top of their lungs if they found it in their room: a tall man. That may not sound scary at first, but knowing I had locked my door before I went to sleep and suddenly seeing someone appear out of nowhere in my room the next day did frighten me. Not only that, but the man was tall enough to reach the ceiling by standing straight and had broad features; he could break a log (or my neck) with his bare hands without a second thought. However, what made him stand out the most was that he looked like a shadow, standing menacingly by the window with his back directed at me. My heart was racing as if it wanted to leap out of my chest or flatline to spare me the pain. The only thing I could do was think and wonder: am I awake? or am I still sleeping? Is this what meeting a paralysis demon is like? I wanted to do something, I wanted to fight, I wanted to scream. But as hard as I tried, there was nothing I could do. It’s a strange feeling to grasp your mortality and know that you are about to die, even if it’s a dream or a nightmare that you know you can’t wake up as much as you fight. Is this how I die? Alone in a hotel in another state 6 hours away, and another country that was 10 hours away from my family. But what concerned me the most was how long it would take for my family to receive the news. I thought, “Was coming here a bad idea?”. I felt that I should’ve gone to work instead. My many regrets and the many things I wanted to say and do all came to me at once. The one thing that constantly came to mind was: I don’t want to die; I don’t want to die. I’ve never felt so powerless before. It is funny how, when I was a kid and through my teenage years, I always imagined scenarios where I thought I could take on anyone. Things like that someone would think to pass the time and entertain himself due to watching too many TV shows. However, when it came to fighting for my life—paralyzed at the mercy of this thing—my heart just raced faster. My hands felt loose after a moment, and my only thought was to run away; I grabbed the pillow beside me and threw it with all my strength at the man. But as soon as I threw the pillow, my eyes closed. When I opened them again, 4 hours later, I saw that I had thrown the pillow, but it had hit the window and knocked some things over. From there, I stayed on my bed for another hour until room service knocked on my door. That’s when I knew my time in Ruidoso had ended. I showered, packed my things, and left at 2 p.m. Once I returned to El Paso, I passed out on my couch for hours. The next day, I packed my things again and went to see my parents. I never thought hearing them would bring me comfort after what I saw. Once I arrived at their home, they asked: how was Ruidoso? To which I responded, “It was great, you should go there”. In reality, yes, I would go again. Still, I do not believe in the supernatural. I swear I didn’t smoke anything or took anything during my stay. Maybe it was a messed-up wake-up call for me to appreciate things more, never knowing where my light would be snuffed out by something or someone.

During the summer, I went to Mexico to visit my family. It had been 10 years since the last time I had visited. The mountains were a dark-green color that stretched from one corner of the country to the other. To get to San Sebastian, a magical little town, we had to drive into them. Our car twisted and wound up along a road that turned from smooth asphalt, to gravel, to dirt, and then cobblestone. The further up we went, the more my ears began to pop. The air that blew into the car window became fresher and cleaner. As we made our way into the town, my grandpa asked the driver to pull over to the shop his brother Pedro owned. We stayed there all-night listening to my grandpa and his brother catch up, while we ate all types of spicy chips. As the town grew darker, the bugs buzzed louder. The sounds of the dense mountains and all their life were constant throughout the night. My aunt and I decided to leave the shop and go for a walk up the road we came into town on. The streetlights offered us slivers of light, but the spaces in between were large gaps in darkness. We approached the edge of the mountain and looked below the town. It was too dark and foggy to see anything, but it still felt just as vast as it did during daylight. We walked past this large chocolate factory where they sold over-priced sweets. About two minutes down, there was a cemetery. My great grandparents are buried there, as well as two babies my grandma lost a few months into her pregnancy earlier in her life, and Tio Cheme. My aunt Emma whispered, “Have you heard the story about Tio Cheme?” I didn’t even know I had half the family I visited on the trip. It was no surprise that I had only ever heard of Cheme when I learned that he passed away. He had a whole 30 years of life with no health conditions. When he died of a heart attack, it was a major shock to everyone. My aunt continued, “He had a routine where every day he would walk through the town and somewhere along the way a trucker friend of his, Leo, would pick him up and drop him off wherever he needed to go. It was always the same place around the same time. This continued as the years passed. Then last year, something odd happened. It was in the middle of the night, and the fog was heavy. Leo was a mile or so from San Sebastian when he saw Cheme standing along the side of the road, alone in the darkness. Leo pulled up to him, and Cheme got into the car without a word. He was different. Something was off, but Leo could not get a word out of him. They made their way into town. Right as they were passing the cemetery, he opened the car door. As soon as Leo slammed on the brakes, Cheme jumped from the car and headed straight for the cemetery.” Emma and I arrived at the entrance to the cemetery and made our way in. I scanned the yard for anyone else and checked behind me too. The graves were so close to one another that it made it impossible not to step on someone’s headstone. Almost every grave had a big bouquet of vibrant flowers, they added a pop of color to the pitch-black night. Emma continued, “Leo was confused. He kept driving on his route and stopped in the next town to get a coffee and a meal. At the restaurant, he told the owner about the exchange that he had just finished having with Cheme. He was not able to get too far into the story when the owner cut him off ‘what do you mean you picked up Cheme? That’s not possible, Cheme died three days ago.’ Leo turned pale, he couldn’t finish his meal, and got a fever forcing him to stay the night in town.” Cheme hasn’t been seen since, the town thinks he was still passing on to the afterlife that night he was picked up by Leo.

El Paso, Texas, is a city that borders Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. A place where people cross daily to get to school or work. A place where the lives of well-to-do people are concealed and left with a great mystery. The Stories We Hear: Students cross from Juarez to El Paso: they wait in the line that they walked about half a mile to reach, go to the machine that scans their passport, talk to the CBP officers, place their backpacks through the conveyor belt, grab it when it comes through the other side, and head to the bus station where that bus will take them to school. Others get into their friend’s car or their friend’s mom’s car, cross through SENTRI (where there is little to no line), barely get questioned by CBP, and get to school quickly. Meanwhile, 20 minutes away… Students walk out of their houses, wait at the bus stop, get picked up by the smiling bus driver, and are dropped off at school early. Others get into their parent’s car, their parent(s) silently drive them to school while music comes out of the speakers, and they get dropped off with no words, not even a thank you to their parent(s). Some get into their own cars, drive to Starbucks, get coffee, and head to school early – or late, it doesn’t matter. These are the different sides of that experience. Some teenagers go to Cathedral or Loretto, others go to Coronado High School, Chapin, Bowie, or Jefferson. What differentiates these schools? The financial status of the people who attend. When people find out someone went to Coronado High School, the first statement that pops out of their mouths is, “Oh, so you’re rich?” Usually, high school is where people start to notice financial status. Coronado students are known to have big houses, wear expensive brands, and drive fancy cars (but of course, this is all ‘daddy’s money’). Not to mention, living on the Westside of El Paso also adds a different connotation of where you came from, how much money you have, and even what kind of person you are. We hear so many inspirational stories of incredible people who have come to the United States and built a great life for themselves. But we don’t often hear the other side of people who are very comfortable in their lifestyles because they don’t want for anything. There is balance in the chasm between people who struggle and people who simply don’t. Financial status is a big topic in El Paso. It defines who you are and how people view you. However, because it is not a ‘nice’ topic to discuss, it is rarely mentioned. People gossip but never outwardly admit that they are interested in talking about it. How would I know this? Because I’ve somewhat lived it. Now, I grew up as others would say… privileged. I moved to El Paso when I was five from a small town in Mexico, and my parents paid for private school education for nine years of my life. I grew up getting everything I had ever wanted and was denied nothing. So, while others struggled with paying for school, rent, or food, I lived a very fulfilled and blessed life. However, I spent some of my high school life and most of college feeling the need to justify my financial status. I went to high school with people who were (in plain words) very wealthy, but I also went to school with first-generation U.S. citizens who were even the first to gain a high school education or higher. I didn’t belong to either of those categories. Instead, I was stuck in this place of limbo. In college, as I began to meet people and they began to ask what side of town I lived and where I went to high school, it was interesting as I saw them draw up their conclusions of who I was based on the things I had because of those underlying stereotypes. I also began to meet people with so many different stories than mine, and it was nice to see how we could all get together and appreciate learning and growing. It may seem like a first-world problem (and it is), but it was exhausting to be asked what my parents did when I had people over to my house or if I was rich because I wasn’t, they just saw it that way. El Paso is filled with different people. I happened to grow up with people who went to parties and took vacations in Europe, and while that was not me, people who don’t know me associate me with those things. I feel like the lives of the rich is something taboo – something that everyone knows exists but never talks about. Here is an insight into their lives: Their parents are usually wealthy business owners who come from a line of wealthy people, they have several cars and huge houses, their parents pay for college to wherever they want, and usually the kids go to party schools outside of the state, some of them join sororities or fraternities, their parents are out of town A LOT, they throw parties and their parents let them underage drink because they are doing it ‘inside the house,’ as if they don’t do it outside as well. Ultimately, while some may feel very satisfied with their lifestyles, they will never have enough because they have the world at their disposal. Now, I know this is also generalizing, but much of it is reality. I think people are uncomfortable thinking and talking about it in fear of offending others. I also want to note that this is not exclusive to one ethnicity or race. In fact, some of the wealthiest people in El Paso are not white Americans but migrated people from Mexico. It sucks to be told that you are privileged, but it is also important to be realistic and own it. That’s the reality of many lives in El Paso, and there’s no use ignoring that part of the city just because it may not seem as attractive or universal. No one should diminish the importance of everyone’s stories and lives. This is the world and city we live in, full of stereotypes, judgments, and monetary differences. At the end of the day, we are all humans living the human experience, and it can look different for everyone.

I roam the streets of Downtown El Paso. Everyone is on their phones trying to catch the latest Pokémon spotted. A Charizard. Not only are there people my age who grew up with Pokémon, but older people are trying to swipe the ball across the screen. Younger people run around with the screen right in their eyes. It’s a warm night, but the cucumber lemonade stand helps everyone quench their thirst. The line is long, and the game keeps everyone distracted while they wait. Random people join my friends and me, and we all walk with our phones in front of us. The streets shine with the essence of a community coming together to achieve a task that carries little weight in the real world – yet the problems of yesterday, today, and possibly tomorrow are nowhere to be spotted. The occasional worker from one of the many restaurants joins the groups hoarding the streets. I stop to take in the movement of the crowds around me, moving in every direction. Time pauses with me, but only for a moment, as if it is being scrutinized for not staying busy at work. It hits me that I will never see the smiles across the faces of these strangers again. The sky is a perfect shade of violet that has cast a veil of peace over the downtown area. The rush of people does not bother me in the slightest because I have no sense of urgency. There are still people flooding Downtown El Paso to join the latest buzz of Pokémon Go! Something about taking that initial step something I’d been waiting for feels refreshing. I never want to leave this moment. A friend of mine decides to walk between the buildings to look for a way up. We find one not too far from San Jacinto Plaza. I struggle to climb up at first because heights have never been my strong suit. Yet, the rush I get from climbing the ladder gives me the boost I need to reach the top. “What a view,” someone says. “Look at all the lights!” From where we’re standing, we can see the lit-up star on the mountain. Everyone at the plaza is running around catching Pokémon. We decide to continue our adventure, so we enter the abandoned building. It smells rustic and old, with debris in every direction. The only light source comes from our phones and any light seeping through the windows. We pick up anything we can find to inspect. There are rooms smaller than a closet and other rooms as big as a lobby. The crowds outside seem faint inside the building, devoid of noise. Finally, we make our way out the same way we came in. The world around me returns to normal as we step outside. We head back to the car late into the night. Everyone else seems to be doing the same. Some are still laughing and shouting excitedly over the latest Pokémon they caught. The drive through downtown is magical, with its tall buildings and lights illuminating every crevice of the sidewalks. I sit in the backseat and look out the window. I turn my head back as downtown shrinks in the rearview. I lean against the seat as the outside world speeds down the highway towards the end of the night.

I’ve met so many people in my life, too many people to count. I’ve met young people, middle-aged people, and people that kept me up at night wondering just how much longer they had. I’ve met tall people, super tall people, short people, and even people as short as me. The point is, I’ve met a lot of people, and out of the thousands of faces that I’ve seen and the millions of stories that I’ve heard, I’ve never met anyone with a story like mine. Growing up, I always felt different. Yes I know, what a cliche thing to say, but it’s true. My life felt close to perfect. You see, the thing about my childhood was that there was absolutely nothing superficial about it. I was raised on the outskirts of town, technically I didn’t even live in El Paso at all. You would have to pass a sign on the highway that read “Leaving city limits” and enter a new land called Homestead Meadows. Here, everything was quiet. We didn’t have a neighborhood lined with cherry blossoms, lamp posts, or even pavement. We had dirt, lots and lots of dirt. Rolling hills of red dirt, but I’m pretty sure the correct term is dunes. The front yard had a perfect view of the Hueco Mountains and there were no other houses for miles, not until you hit Zaragoza a couple miles down. The land was painted with weeds, but not the pretty weeds that produce flowers. No of course we didn’t have those. We had the sticker bushes, the bushes with thick thorns that had a line of red ants going up and down their branches. We had cacti that learned how to weather the desert sun. As a child, I was always tempted to touch the cactus in the front yard, but my mother always warned me of the consequences. You see, it’s not the weeds, or the dirt, or the desert air that made my childhood different from yours, it was the fact that my entire family was able to share it together. My house sits in the middle of our 8-acre property, with my grandma's house to the left and my aunts house to the right. Red Sands Elementary was the only other building that dared be built out here, and by out here, I guess we refer to that now as the Far East. I have these flashes of memories that pop up every now and then when I need them, like the little emotions in my head know exactly what memory to play. I remember my older brother and my two older cousins, all of us giggling, playing outside with the water hose making our mud castles and rubbing our muddied hands onto our clothes. There was always a mother or a grandma nearby, keeping an eye on us from a distance, but allowing us to grow and make messy mistakes. In the backyard of my aunt's house was a dirt bike track, but to me it looked like a maze. The fleeting memories remind me of the sound of a dirt bike engine and the smell of methanol. I can still feel the sun beating down on me as I watched my older cousin make sharp turns. I knew that at a young age we were all different. I had labels for everyone. The oldest cousin Jeremy was the daredevil. The second born, my brother, Anthony was the mastermind, the planner. The third born, my older cousin Desirae, was the drummer, the rebellious one. And then there was me, Sarah, the dreamer. Every day, we would walk to each other's houses, play tag outside, race our bikes across the land, make up scenarios in our head, create a whole dance routine that felt like an hour long but in reality it was a whooping 7 minute performance. On rainy days, we’d grab our coats and look for toads, jump in puddles with our new tennis shoes our moms had just bought us. We would always laugh when we’d see their red hot faces yelling at us from the kitchen window. That was the beauty of it, the togetherness of everything, the promise that everyday, I would wake up and see them all over again. We went to the same school, shared the same uniform, and would walk past our classes just to wave at each other through the glass. We’d come home and the boys would play their video games while me and Dez would do puzzles and play My Littlest Pet Shop. God, we’d spend hours setting everything up, creating the perfect story line, and making sure every figure was used. The moms would be in the kitchen discussing their new haircuts or how they couldn’t believe why the city would allow Mervyns to shut down. The dads would be in the shop working on sprint cars, covered in grease and metal fragments. For a couple of years, everything was just as it should be. Just imagine, every birthday, every Christmas, every Thanksgiving, every Sunday night football game, and every Easter egg hunt with the same people, year after year. That was my life. But then, that thing we call growing up happened. That thing we all fear. Change. You see, to a lot of people, El Paso is this boring city with a military base and a couple of malls spread out. To them, it’s just a place where they once lived, a place that borders Mexico, a place where nothing really happens. To them, El Paso is just dirt. But to me, it’s everything. That’s where I knew I was different, the dirt reminded me that I was home. Soon, the oldest, the daredevil, took on a new challenge. College. At the time, it was a new concept to me. You mean there’s more school after high school? It was absurd. But I was ok, I thought there’s three of us left. Time started to fly, everyone started to grow up, make their own path in life, but somewhere along the way I forgot I was growing up too. Before I knew it, the planner and the rebel were off to college, but unlike the daredevil, they decided to stay here in El Paso for school. It gave me a breath of relief, I didn’t have to say goodbye just yet. Time passed and soon enough I had finally caught up, we were all at the same school again. By this time, rowdy neighbors had moved close by, the dirtbike track had deteriorated into nothing more than just lumpy bits of sand with ruts here and there. Speedway Park, the race track right across the street, was torn down. The place where we would spend our weekends, where our dads would wrench on cars, where our moms would put protective coverings over our ears, it was just gone. But I was laser focused on only seeing what I had, what was in front of me, because thinking of everything that was different hurt too much. Eventually, the rebel graduated and the planner moved in with his girlfriend across town. One by one, I saw them go, I saw them through their growing pains, learned from their mistakes, and I watched them pack. I helped zip up their suitcases, and I said goodbye. Now of course, it’s not as dramatic as it seems. There’s cellphones and facetime and the lovely Instagram app, but it’s so uniquely different. In this town, I’ve lost my loved ones, I’ve seen my loved ones grow up and grow old. I’ve had pets that I loved for years end up with special burials in the backyard. I’ve had plenty of heartbreaks here and there, but I was always able to retreat to my home where my mom would cook my favorite meal and tell me boys are a waste of time, and that waiting for the right one is worth it. I learned how to drive here, how to get feral animals to trust me, how to keep a garden alive and even how to sew, but I forgot how to do the latter. No matter where I end up, how far away I move, I will always be connected to this place, connected to the red sand. I will always be grateful for being able to recall memories that ring of sweetness and nostalgia. I always felt different because I know not everyone can speak the same way I can about childhood. Now, in the present day, as I’m surrounded by change and loss and grief, I am able to overcome everything because I remember the near perfectness of my life long ago, and I tell myself to keep going, that maybe, just maybe, life will feel that way again.