It
has been five years since the day I arrived here. For the first couple of
years, I was trying to fit in; to survive until I can go back again, but things
change. I am a part now and am torn between going back and staying. I miss that
place, but I do not want to stay there for a long time. I do not want to be
left out and not fit in again. That is like doing what I did five years ago all
over again and I still remember how unpleasant that experience.
It
was dusk, and the sky was dark orange waiting for the darkness to fully
takeover. It was gloomy and silent. The only noise I can hear was the car’s
engine, the loud yet somewhat mute in my ear traffic outside, and my sister’s
muffled sobbing. It was surreal. I was lost.
“What
is happening?” I thought to myself looking at the surroundings I passed by. I
was trying to memorize it before I leave and I do not know when I was coming
back at all. “I don’t wanna go” was all my inside emotions trying to say and I
continued to think, “Not in a place where I am not a part of.”
Then
there I was in SFO airport and in South San Francisco. It was a totally
different place and way different from what I expected and lived at. The roads
were wider and cleaner. I thought to myself, “This place… is better.”
When
my mother announced that I will be starting school, I was, for lack of any
better word, scared. I was scared. I only knew about American schools from
movies, and from what impression I got, I did not want to go. There will be
cliques or groups that isolate themselves from other groups, there will be
bullies, and there will be, of course, loners. On my first day, I pushed the
entrance doors and all I saw was people, doors, and lockers and I knew for sure
that I was scared. I was scared to not to fit in.
All
of the American movies I watched that gave me an impression on how American
schools work were all bull. Yes, there are groups and cliques, but they are
natural and somewhat necessary. Bullies were just rebels or stupid kids that
tried to get attention, and loners just needed their… space? Overall, the
stereotypes of American movies were all lies, but they surely did make me
paranoid and I had let it eat me.
For
the first few months of school, I would talk to some people, but I never really
hang out with them or even considered them as my friends because I felt that
they did not consider me one anyway and I was unimportant. I tried avoiding
talking to people, because I thought they will pick on me. I was a loner. I
remember sitting on the top of the stairs watching all the kids eat around the
cafeteria with their own cliques. I did not want that to happen, but it did
because of the fear stereotypes marked on me.
It
may have taken quite some time for me to adjust and have what I call friends,
but I did eventually. It is better late than never and I blame stereotype that
took over me.
