[alive]

"I'm tired!" I cried, frustrated to the edge of my tolerance. Spotting a low ledge nearby, I stubbornly plopped myself down, resolving not to budge until I... stopped being so tired.

Angry, equally-frustrated voices negated this resolution, and I found myself being pulled back to my feet. I saw my brother nearby, cranky and half asleep in my dad's arms. Why did I have to walk when he didn't? It wasn't fair. I wanted someone to carry me too.

My shoulders ached from my backpack straps. My feet ached from trying to make my way through the bustling airport, and I was bored and cranky from a couple of long flights across the globe. Everything was strange and new, but the excitement of being halfway around the world had receded to temper tantrums induced by strange food, clothing mishaps, and sheer exhaustion.

The rest of the trip through the airport is a blur. I remember exiting one part of the airport to a more open part. I feel like it was outdoors, but maybe it was just a different part of the airport. Somehow, maybe because someone told me and I don't remember the words, I knew that the large group of people waiting for us were my family. I felt like collapsing. Nothing mattered except how tired I was.

One of the young men grabbed me and pulled me into his arms. I clung to him, exhausted and trusting. My eyes were shut and my body limp the moment I was against his chest. In the distance, I heard my mother say, "Someone pick her up! She's so tired."

"I am, auntie. I did..." The voice said, and I faded in and out for a few moments.

How we ended up in cars is a blur. Maybe I was awake and maybe I wasn't. But I ended up in a jeep with no top. The back was long and had benches for people to sit on. Several family members were back there with me... if I remember correctly it was pretty packed. I don't remember my mother being there, although I'm not sure how my family managed to get me away from her, now that I think about it. Someone was holding me on their lap. I squirmed. I was suddenly very awake as the warm night air whipped past my face and excited voices chattered around me.

I managed to stand up. Maybe someone was still holding me, but my memory doesn't contain that. We rounded a corner as I stood, and I caught my first glimpse of poverty.

The world slid by in slow motion. A cluster of large cardboard boxes with metal siding for roofs lined the street we were on. Naked children playing in the dirt ignored our precession, but a filthy, bony pregnant woman clinging to a newborn stopped breast feeding to watch us pass. One of the boys, who was older than me, only had one arm.

The air smelled like rain and gasoline.

I felt so alive, for the first time in my life. Somehow, I was connected with these poor people, and with the family I had never met around me. I was not home. Mommy was not here to hold my hand. The world was not a safe, happy place full of stuffed puppies and milk and cookies. My heart broke and mended itself all at the same time, like a muscle tearing and reforming instantly to yield something stronger than before. I was inextricably connected to humanity. The world was mine for the taking.

Someone pulled me back into their arms. Had it been a minute or a second? I don't know. But in my memory it is a peak, defining moment. I had never felt so alive. I had never felt so connected with the world. No moment had ever felt so pure, so unadulterated, so real.

I was five years old.

Every time I smell rain mixed with gasoline, I remember that the world is mine. Sometimes I even go hunt down the smell at 3 AM at the local gas station after a rainstorm just to remind myself.