Do You Think I'm Pure?

7 The Move

May of 2015 was the time I got my passport with my grandma. Since I was a minor aged eleven, I needed an adult to accompany me to America. So, my grandma came with me. I was so excited. Not only will I be seeing my parents and my siblings (my parents went to America with my first younger brother who was a baby of a few-months, but they had my younger sister in America), I will also get to live in America and have a new life. A new life with new friends and no one who knew my secrets. I was excited to ride the plane, and eat new foods which tasted weird. I also became rude to my grandma. Because while going to America and stepping in different airports, I was impatient with my grandma. I wanted to be independent, but she wanted to stare and be amazed at everything. I spoke a little bit of English, and she would ask me to translate the words on the signs when we arrived in Atlanta. When we waited in an airport, she would ask people questions and be friendly, but I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed by her chattiness. She would talk a lot, and drag me everywhere with her. She would sometimes ask me to ask people questions if we weren't sure where to go. By looking at the adversity of everybody and noticing how different me and my grandma's clothes stood out in airports, I was embarrassed of my self, my culture, my heritage. I wished that I could be like those people who seemed so cool, and so sure of themselves.

When my grandma and I started living in Atlanta with my parents, we lived in an apartment complex from Tucker. My grandma lived with us from May until the start of school. Even though I started acting like a know-it-all brat with my grandma, she was patient with me to the point of explaining to me how my attitude changed and how rude I was becoming. She let me know that I should become my old cheerful excited self again. My grandma is my second role model (my first role model is Jesus), and I think that I look a lot like her. Since my grandma is an outgoing person, she didn't like sitting at home watching TV. She walked around the apartment neighborhood and greeted anyone she saw. I like it when she say "hi", it is so funny. I, on the other hand, would've liked sitting in the apartment staring at a computer screen all day and night long. When I got a computer, I liked playing games on it. Or watch movie shows, and animations. That's how I started watching a lot of anime, through YouTube. I used to watch anime in Burkina Faso on a channel named "Manga". But I became an anime lover by isolating myself with a computer. So because I isolated myself so much, my grandma dragged me with her outside and told me how I've changed. I was no longer outgoing and excited to see new places, I wanted to sit at a computer all day everyday watching anime.

After living in Tucker for a few months and even starting sixth grade there (before coming to America, I already passed the sixth grade. But American educational people made me retake the sixth grade all over again), we moved to Snellville Gwinnett County where I went to Snellville Middle School. And my grandma went back to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso after the move. I thought that she was going to stay longer, or that maybe I was going back with her. I was saddened to see my grandma go. However, she reminded me the purpose of her coming and that I had my parents and my siblings. I love my grandma. Whenever she calls, she asks me if I made friends (because in middle school, I didn't talk to anybody, not even the teachers. I was a loner and okay with it. I had anime. Now I'm still kinda by myself, but I have a few friends and most importantly, I have Jesus.) I would tell her that I have friends so she won't worry. But she knows better, and would ask for names. And I would give the names of classmates who are as quiet as me, and who I sit with at lunch and say "hi" to. Technically they were my acquaintances, not friends. To be honest, I wanted friends who liked anime. But looking back, I think I isolated myself, because I wanted to be by myself and felt like I didn't fit in. Because I knew classmates who loved anime, but I didn't try to be close to them even though I wanted to. I never felt any real and deep sense of belonging in this world, but I tried to fill the void I had with all types of things except GOD.

I loved anime. I would even fight my younger siblings for the computer just to finish watching the episodes that I started. I watched most, if not all, genres of anime. I also watched so much anime, especially the English subtitle ones, that I started saying unconsciously words in Japanese. Once, I almost said "yes" in Japanese to my mom when she called me. My brain started learning Japanese without my knowledge. "What you watch, you become": a quote from somewhere.

Remember when I wrote that I was mean? I was a cruel sister. My first impressions of my family when I met them with my grandma and of the USA was this:

"_my dad looks the same, he hadn't aged (he lifted me up in the air and spun when he saw me.) I guess people stop aging for a while when they become adults.

_My mom looks so different, so old compared to my dad. But she was so much younger and stylish looking before.

_America is a beautiful land, but a hard place to live in such harsh expectations. The people don't look like in television.

_My younger brother, two years older than my younger sister, let's my younger sister bully him. He cries and whines to mom for the smallest things she does to him. And he lets her do that. I wouldn't let that brat get away with hitting me.

_My younger sister is a spoiled brat who thinks that she can get away with anything. She cries when dad or mom doesn't give her what she wants.

_My parents lets my siblings get whatever they want and do everything they want with not much correction. It's like the house is run by the kids. No adult correcting. Even though my parents love all of their children, they have favorites. My dad favors my sister and her bubbly, sassy nature. And my mom favors my brother and his quiet, kind of shy nature."

When I meet people, I observe them. Both their physical appearance and their attitude. I love people watching. Anyone has physical beauty, and like anyone I can look and see those most attractive. But overall, I'm more interested to who they really are on the inside. Physical features and personalities are really interesting to me. But I know that my parents love all four of their children (my youngest brother was born the next year or so). I was already mean to my sister, because she acted like a spoiled brat. She would hit my brother, and I would her. And then, I would criticize my brother for not hitting her himself. If I was home from school and my sister was on the computer, I would force her off to use the computer myself. She would call me mean, and then go cry to the parents. And the parents would drive me off the computer, because I used the computer all day watching anime. And sometimes I would give the computer to my brother, but my sister would take the computer from him making me take it from her. And her going to cry to the parents, and the cycle continues. When I watched anime, I didn't let no one near because I mostly watched the sexually perverse stuff (homosexuality, nudity, fornication, and the likely arousing stuff.) And also because the language wasn't French or English. My parents wanted me to watch American shows to better understand English. But I explained that there was English subtitles making it possible for me to read and understand English faster. Plus, I read books everyday. I got myself three books each two weeks or so. I constantly read and watched anime. My life was food, books, anime. Life was a dream and dream was life, because life is hazy and my dreams are very vivid. The moon also looked like something out of a dream in the mornings. I now believe that Life is Jesus. My life is Jesus.