The Winds of Change

It has been about six days since I have returned home from Mexico, visiting family and making memories with new friends and old acquaintances. Being there reminded me of a simpler life with no internet connection and digging deeper into the roots of my childhood.

I can close my eyes and smell the smoke of a burning fire, meat roasting, and the smell of Mexico (if you could only smell what I smelled). I see myself as a little girl, running around barefoot in an over sized t-shirt, hair long and wild from the slight breeze. I still hear my mom yelling at me to stop playing in the sand and my favorite aunt responding that I was just a child who needed to be left alone with my imagination.

I see the photos of my entire family, hanging on the pink walls of my grandmother's home. The smiles of monumental stepping stones of their (and my) life. A frozen past.

I have 36 cousins, 26+ second cousins (called Nieces or Nephews in Mexican Culture) and throughout the years, the only sound I was ever used to was stomping feet of running children, loud familiar laughter from the adults, mainly the women that were cooking in the kitchen (I was specifically excited to eat the cooked beans that I crave all year around). These aunts and uncles with their children, all lived in my grandparents home. My grandmother had 10 children, all of them now married and I remember being loved by all of them in different ways.

Besides the children of my oldest aunt (oldest sister to the 9 siblings including my father), whose children were over the age of 18 when I was born, my siblings and I were the only children in the house when we would visit. The love and attention was able to be all my own. I never needed to look for the approval of that side of my family simply because they wanted to make up for the 9 months that they were not able to be with me.

I was always looked after by my aunts and grandparents. For meals they would serve me a plate full of beans and a side of whatever the main course was. They would tell me stories about how I would cry if they tried to feed me anything else. They still do that for me. Smiling and reminding me of how much love they felt coming from me.

Growing up in two different countries, I had to experience many different things. The mix of cultures seemed to be the least of my worries as my young mind began to explore the dangers of racial issues. I never noticed it before but when I think back to my teenage years, I have been the victim of many racial issues. Even when I would go to Mexico, I would have to face the choice of living in America, where people believe that I am made of money and choose to take advantage of me and my emotions. While I know that it was hard, I grasp the situations life has thrown at me. I appreciate my roots far more because of the ignorance and hate from others.

This past trip was especially 'new' for me. It made me realize what I would like to see in the future and part of what I had never seen from my past.

When we, my family and I, first arrived at my grandmother's home, it was filled with bursting emotions- happiness, gratefulness, and loneliness. As we took turns holding and kissing my grandma, it was my turn, and while she was happy and teary to see all of us, she looked at me, kissed my cheek and began to cry from her soul. She told me that she was all alone- my grandpa passed away in 2011 and my great-grandmother passed away last June. She was alone. And I held her in my arms, crying because of all of our losses. I never knew how to comfort those who were hurting from the loss of loved ones. I only said what came to me "You are never alone. God is with you and here I am."

I spent a lot of time alone with my grandma. The many children of hers were married and moved to houses of their own, taking the stomping of little feet and shouts of unattended yells, with them. My favorite aunt and her children were the only ones who stayed. There were a ton of opportunities for me to go with my parents to different towns to visit and just enjoy our vacation time. But I didn't want those opportunities and took my free time to my grandmother. I would walk in, she would give me food, and then we would sit across from each other with a cup of coffee and some hidden cookies she had. She would tell me about many different and irrelevant things but I knew that they made sense in her mind. I knew that all she wanted was someone to listen to her. After a small chat and the occasional silence, we smiled at each other and listened to the breeze, much like the one that I could feel when I remembered my childhood, we would place our cups in the sink and sit outside, in the warm sunlight.

At night, I would reflect of the days events, hoping that somewhere, my thoughts were being carried in the wind. I would think of my past time in Mexico, things that I wish I grew up faster to see. I knew that this was the first time that I had the mentality of an adult, when I would see what was really there, instead of making my family seem like they are not. Gossip and rumors playing a long path in that mentality.

The time I spent, talking and reflecting, was refreshing and new. I realized that most of my life was a mentality that I didn't want to break, a mask that I never wanted to take away, out of fear that what was underneath would change my life forever. That was when the winds of change appeared.

The moment I stepped out of that van, to hold my family again, was the moment I broke the mask and saw what was really there.

I am scared. Afraid that my life is built upon lies and false hope. I do have faith in myself because I did things that I was comfortable with, that I couldn't do in my American home. I was wanted and appreciated by the children that I saw. I was open and saw myself, the me that was left behind when I was lead astray. So when I came home, to face the false me that was present, the whole world shifted from underneath me.

I question myself again. The path I was walking has puddles of unsure thoughts. I came home and the world around me has passed me by. There is a new melody playing and I still haven't memorized the beat but I am hopeful that I never will.

Things change and while I am all for change, I fear what it will do to me. I lost myself, when I forgot about thinking what the future holds for me, those detailed plans and wishes were put on hold as I just allowed myself to live, and now, they are blurred in front of me.

Change is scary for some but I do not fear it, I merely fear what will become of me. I know myself enough to know that when a decision is made, I stick with it unless it has not gone through. I change my mind often when I am unsure of something and so....here I am.

This new breeze is different than the one I smelled/closed my eyes to, when I was a child. Different from the one I would sit through, those many nights on the wall-fence of my grandmother's home. This breeze does not have a name yet- no feeling or memory.

And it scares me.