"Give it time."

“Miguel, wake up! It’s snowing!” My baby sister scared the heck out me, but in doing so, she got me up and running towards a nearby window. Pull the blinds up in a flash. It’s no lie. Snow was falling from the gray clouds in the sky above. Falling, falling beautifully. A smile appeared on my face. It was my first time seeing snow. Seeing snow reminds me what happened about a year ago.

I go back to Puerto Rico. It’s a place where you would never see snow down there. You’d see the beauty of the Tropics, the white sandy beaches, the crystal clear Caribbean Sea, palm trees swaying in the warm tropical wind that would flow over us. My community was a great community. My family and I knew everyone around us, and everyone knew my family and me. We would walk into stores for buying food, clothing, etc, and they would say hello or wave to us, and then we’d get into conversations about how has our day been, what’s been going in your life, the latest gossip, chats like that. (The gossip refers to my Mom.) My community was a community I loved. So if it was a good community, why did I leave Puerto Rico? It turns out I had no choice. Like all good things, they must come to an end. We struggled financially for a certain time. I knew it. We couldn’t make payments on our home. It wasn’t looking good.

We had to move out, but where? The answer was kind of obvious. The United States. We packed up what we needed, clothing, food, merchandise that mattered to us. Stuff like that. We made sure we didn’t forget the papers and passports. My Mom kept nagging Dad about it. One more of those, and Dad was ready to flip out. I was ready to flip out as well. I mean, I know she’s want to make sure we don’t forget anything we need, but it’s like she pokes us about it. She’s like “Hey, hey. You get the papers and passports. Did you? We can’t forget them.” Okay, we won’t the damn thing! I ready to here from Dad, but he never said it. Even when we got into the country, he stayed cool.

Speaking of coming into the country, America was a new experience for us. We entered JFK International Airport. That’s in New York City. We saw buildings reach up high in the sky, many automobiles, so many people in suits. There were so many things in New York City. However, there are some bad things in America I heard of. Lots of violence, an obesity problem (which was kind of obvious), and “party hooters.” The first night in our new American home, and the party hooters I told you about, yeah… it was a rough night for our family. At first I didn’t think this could work.

5 days being in our new home, I told Mom, “I don’t this could work.” She asked what I meant. I told her, “We moving to America. I mean it’s been rough these past few weeks.” Mom gave me a solution that she thought right off the top of her. “Give it time.”

With that, I think about these past months of being here, and well… she was right. Aren’t all moms right? Anyway, Mom finds a job at the New York Times headquarters. She works in a normal cubical like any other person in office. She just checks and edits a person’s article. Sounds boring. Here this, because of her work on, she got promoted to being the editor’s secretary. Dad has a job on art. I must have forgotten to mention that Dad is an artist. Loves to draw, paint, anything to make his art pop out, to inspire, to… make you feel. Apparently, what happen to start of Dad’s new art career. He made an art store on corner of where we live now, and a contractor comes into his store (I’m saying it from him), he said the contractor loved his art. Every art piece in the store had a theme to it. He offered him a deal that Dad could not refuse. He would sell his art around the world, to art museums, galleries, etc. He would supply him with his own art materials. Hearing all this from Mom and Dad, I’m like, “Wow.” I’m just amazed that we have come Puerto Rico in a financial crisis, and here we are. School is working out for me, too. I made good friends during these past months. I even showed them one of Dad’s paintings, I hear ooh’s and aah’s. One of my teachers said, “It’s remarkable. Your Dad must have an incredible mind to make such fantastic imagery.”

So yeah, I miss Puerto Rico, my old friends, my old community, but I have a new community that I like now. It’s my new home, have new friends, and I experience a weather change up here as well. I’m so use to warmth of Puerto Rico. Now I have to get used to cold winters, but at least I see a new kind of precipitation. And I can do cool activities in it as well. So I guess that wraps up my internal monologue. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going sledding.