One time I lost something.
In my mind, it didn’t exist before I lost it.
Things come and go.
The skill of being grateful for simple things is rarely acquired.
I strive for more than I already have. I don’t enjoy life to its full potential.
The mere chance of my existence is 1 to 400 trillion.
Though every time I wake up in bed, being alive is taken for granted.
I live in an imaginary world full of delusional needs.
I think about the could, dreaming of an unreal future that won’t ever take place while my present drifts off. It glides through space and time until it’s finally sucked up by the black hole.
Then, it only remains in my sorrowful memory.

I’m sitting in a car, gazing out of the window. I’m not fully paying attention.
There are people walking by at a meaningless, slow, almost depressing pace and bikers passing by. Everything seems normal, boring.
One day like another.
I’m on my way home from school and the end of the school year is approaching.
It’s one of those silent car rides.
Out of the blue, my loved one speaks.
“I have to tell you something,” she says.
“We’re moving.”
A strange feeling of despair unfolded in my stomach. Like a snake, it wrapped itself around my guts and started choking me. I wanted to cry. I didn’t.
“Why?” I asked.
My mother didn’t reply for a few seconds, although they seemed like minutes to me.
“Your Father and I have discussed this beforehand and we decided that it would be better for all of us to move.”
Utter confusion intruded my head. Questions of multiple degrees bloated my response.
Though I was only able to respond in a pathetic manner.
“What do you mean?”
“Your father got a new job in the US,” she said. “He had to pick between moving or becoming unemployed.”
“We also don’t want to leave him behind,” she added.
Then it struck me, I’m leaving my life behind. A new life? New friends. New house. A new school?

The endless cycle between optimism and dejection began.
I only remember a few moments from then on.
My best friend Collin and I hung out 6 days a week. He basically moved into our house.
In a way, I was excited to move. I could finally see the place where my mother grew up.

On our way to the airport, my father forgot our passports. I could smell the scent of freshly mown grass in the air as I stepped out of the car. Walking through the terminal door, I was nervous about my father not returning in time, although that clearly wasn’t the case. I usually love being at airports but this time it was different. The airport was full of smog. Everything happened so quickly. Whether it was excitement or fear I cannot say.

I thought I knew what the US would be like. I’ve seen all the 2000s movies. A high school paradise is what I expected. I thought the US would exceed my expectations.
Through each day I spent in the US, I grew to realize what this country was.
It was nothing like Germany, nor was it better. Every time an American asks me to compare their country to Germany I hate to break it to them. I usually say they’re not comparable or something like that. They wouldn’t understand.

I want to go back. Live my old life. But I can’t. I’m off to college soon. I don’t cry. That’s a lie. Men don’t cry. I’m scared.