One Second

It only takes about a second. It takes about one second for it all to set back in. For the normalcy of hotels and tile floors and huge beds not to seem weird anymore. To fall back into "normal" American life because it is familiar and it is what I know. But for a moment, I remember. For a moment I see this huge water fountain in a hotel lobby and think about kids in Africa that drink dirty water from puddles. For a moment I think about my friends in Ecuador that were in awe of a Pizza Hut and how nice the bathroom was. For a moment I'd be embarrassed for them to see me here. It lasts for a moment.

I don't ever want to live a life where this is normal again; where I forget how much I have. But then again, I do. Everything in me wants to have these luxuries and fall into them and forget that a whole other world exists.  Life has changed me though.  The blinders have been taken off and I don't get to put them back on.  There's a part of me that couldn't be more grateful.

Even as I sit here and stare out this window from a hotel in Dallas, Texas my phone rings. It's a 52 (656) number. It's from Juarez, Mexico. It's my friend Margarita that tells me all the time that I am her best friend. She is sitting in her home in Juarez right now.  I don't answer. I just stare. The stark contrast of our lives in this moment hits me hard. I'm sitting in a chair at the top of a hotel staring at the Dallas skyline, thinking about where she's sitting as she's calling me now.

These families have changed me. They are not just people that I met along the way, they have become a part of my life, a part of me.  So now here i sit, with my feet between two worlds, trying to put words to all that i feel.