This is a story based on my personal real life experiences, aimed towards those of you who feel lost, powerless, feel like you aren’t worth it, like nothing is worth it. My goal here is to prove with evidence and with facts that those statements i just made are WRONG in their entirety: You aren’t powerless, You ARE Worth it, It is worth it!
I was born in mexico, but I only knew the US for at least half of my life. I was raised there and I had everything: a huge house, food to spare, a dog, a united family, a great school, everything. I was “happy” for the most part. Then comes 2010 and my Visa expires, including the Visa of my family. We tried to get it back, but to no avail. We were forced to move out of the country back to mexico before getting deported.
Just like that, in a blink of an eye, I lost my culture, my language, everything i knew and love. But i was still young, 10 years old, I wasn’t mature enough to understand what that implied or what it would do to my psyche. It was still fine. And that’s when my parents divorced. I felt my world slowly crumbling apart, My dad wasn’t there for me anymore and my sister with ADD, my mom with Depression, I felt it a necesity to be the strong head of the family to support my mom and sister. And then my mom decided to do something beyond our wildest nightmares: Cross the border through the Arizona Desert.
I was 13 at the time, and I was a little bit more concious about what was going on around me. There I was in the desert, we sold the house, our beds, our computers, our furniture, everything, just to cross the border. We were stuck in the desert for 3 days alongside cartel drug lords, criminals and other families trying to escape a country that couldn’t provide. Then we began our march, and after 6 hours of excrutiating heat, pain, and sore legs, we heard a scream i still remember to this day: the coyote warning the arrival of immigration. Long story short, we got caught, tied, we were at gun point, and we were all sent off to an immigration jail for 3 weeks, with barely any food, water or strength. They took most of our money and set us off in the middle of a city we have never been before. using our last resources, we got a bus towards mexico city, and this is where i tasted the pain of real life in its full potential.
I was homeless, begging for money, digging for food in the dumpsters, almost got murdered 3 times, once at gun point, once at knife point, and once by kidnapping. I begged for money to help my mom get the funds to give me and my sister education. After a few months in this state, we decided that we needed to go to a state where we actually have some family that can help us a little bit. We arrive at the city i currently live in and start from the bottom. We lived with my grandma, had basically no food, no clothes, nothing. I was lost.
Let me emphasize this: I WAS LOST. I lost everything, all my luxuries, all my priveledges, the beauty of eating, of sleeping under a roof. I went from having everything to having practically nothing. I was on the brink of suicide, I was depressed, I had developed PTSD (i still flinch sometimes whenever someone mentions the border to me), I was a mess. But then I did an auto reflection. I already had everything i needed and wanted at one point, and my parents fought long and hard for me to have that. I guess it’s time for me to work for it.
It wasn’t easy. It was a shitshow. I helped my mom out with her new business based on perfumes and gifts, I was trying my best to become a good student, even if i was in a public school (where i was also almost killed a coulpe of times, mainly due to bullying), I was tryng my best to be the best brother I can be, I tried really hard. And at first i didn’t see any results, except on my grades. But then, Something magical, crazy, and unbelievable happened.
Our perfume business flourished, I found a small cheap keyboard which is where i started to pursue music, My grades started going up again, and i just kept on fighting. I fought and i fought, and there were times where i thought i was going nowhere, where i thought that it wasn’t worth it, but I didn’t give up.
Fast forward to today: We have our own house. We have food to spare. I have a house recording and streaming studio. I have a dog. I have a loving family. The business turned into a franchise. I’m now studying University, a major in musical composition. I have my own bed, I have furniture, I have clothing. And all this was achieved by hard work, dedication, passion, and most importantly: Love. Love towards my family, towards my business, towards myself.
I found myself at the bottom of the barrel, and climbed my way out. I lost myself in a dark forest and found my way towards paradise. I was shrouded in darkness and found the light. I did it, and If i could do it, so can you.
Im not going to say it is easy. It isn’t Im not going to sugar coat anything. Life isn’t easy. It can be cruel, it can be unforgiving. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of great things. Life will place mountains in front of you, and you have the power to move them aside and keep going forward. Love is within us, Love is a part of us. Passion comes with love, and with passion comes hard work, dedication and consistency. Just remember this whenever you feel down, whenever you feel like nothing seems to work out. I had everything, Lost it all, and after a lot of hardship, got more than i could ever bargain for. And i’m still fighting. I’m still tryng my best to be better and better, not only in the material side, but also as a person. If i can do it, you can do it too! And if you don’t think you are as capable as me, Then don’t believe me, believe Neil DeGrasse Tyson:
“Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.”
SMIB
End of topic, move along with your day, keep fighting, and stay awesome!
