One day you are laughing and enjoying your life with your best friends, and the next day you are standing in the middle of the hallway feeling lost and scared on your first day of high school. You stay still while everyone passes right by you, and you realize there is no singing or dancing, or someone that comes after the first seconds of the movie that will be your best friend for the rest of your time there.

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I was carrying a backpack full of dreams and hopes; however, my own insecurities and fears made it heavier. Every person walking beside me looked like big sharks swimming in the ocean, while I was a little and fearful fish.  I was a naive 15-year-old who thought that her dream life was going to start very easily, however I realized quickly that to achieve it I needed to work hard for that.

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I was the new girl that came from Juarez who couldn’t speak a good English and who was not only carrying her own dreams but carrying her parents' expectations. Having to leave the life I was used to, my friends for years, or my own comfort zone, was not something I took lightly. I kept asking myself if it was the right thing to do or not. At the end I followed my heart, and it completely changed my life.

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Everything began when a seed was planted in my heart. A dream was growing inside me when I decided where my next step in life was going to be. I had a dream of becoming someone who wanted to pursue her own passions and hopes, but for that some sacrifices needed to be made.

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The day that I told my parents that I wanted to do it was one of the times when I was most confident in a decision. I knew it had to be done, I had to go to El Paso and learn English no matter what obstacles the road could have. I was very scared, because it meant that I had to leave everything that I once only knew to meet new places with new faces, but also, I had to give up a part of me.

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I gave me the wings I needed to fly. I learned many things about myself that I was not aware of before. For example, I learned how to take the bus and how to navigate the city on my own. It helped me understand that I have my own autonomy so I can decide what to do and know their consequences.

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Before this experience, I did not trust myself enough to know I could make many friends, or to communicate in another language by myself. But I did it, because I was good enough to trust myself, and because I never gave up even when the road felt uneasy.

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Since I was a little girl, I have always wanted to be someone in life. During high school I learned that it was okay not to have it all figured out. I had to take day by day and not be too hard on myself. The dreams that I had when I started school were very different from the dreams I had when I graduated.

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I learned what it meant to follow your own dreams, and what it meant to make sacrifices for those. Without the experience, it would have been impossible to learn about myself and my capabilities. I needed to learn how to grow up without the people who gave me my own wings to fly.

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Sometimes I still think about that girl who once feared her first day of high school. That naive girl went to her first class while carrying a backpack full of fears. At the end of that journey, I knew that it stopped feeling heavy and instead it felt lighter; all my hopes and dreams were left in each experience along with the people who were there with me.