Being born is something you would think you only experience once. It is something we all must go through, but something we do not remember doing. We only know about it when we gather our conscience, when we are told about it form the perspectives of others. But imagining it from our own perspective, is simply impossible.

So, how would you feel if you had to experience it again, but as a grown person?

I came to this country on a winter during my teenage years. Our story for getting here is not important... or maybe very important, because it is the story of many people who come here. We were looking for better chances for ourselves. A new life. A second chance. We were seeking to be born again.

But did I want to do that? I certainly remember I did not. Why was so bad about home? I had everything I needed here. Friends, family. Everything I knew and loved. Why would I want to leave it behind? No one gave me answers I could understand... and one day, I saw myself in something I believed only rich people could afford... a giant steel bird called airplane.

And we traveled. The experience of getting into a giant machine and leaving everything you know under you as you lift towards the sky, was something I could only process in the terms of one experience I had before: videogames. I realized, once the plane jumped into the air, that I was on a very long loading screen. You could not see anything, except the clouds, lots and lots of them, or maybe just the same one... and the hours passed. I did not know what I would get to see when the loading screen on my window ended. And during all this time, my mind flew as high as the plane.

I stepped out of the airtport... and this place was unlike anything I experienced before. You could not see the horizon... If you wanted to see something that was more than 20 feet from you, you had to turn your eyes up instead. The monsters which raised from the ground watched me, menaced me, and I felt scared. I believed I was an adult, a grownup... and there I was, feeling terrified of skyscrapers. Nothing I saw around me made sense. Lines and lines of cars; multitudes of people who fought for the empty spaces on the sidewalk. What was this place? It was similar to the place all those movies represented... but so different...

So, when I felt that cold breeze of winter entering my body, it was like breathing for the first time. After a lifetime of feeling the warm winds of the sea smoothly enter to my lungs without almost any effort, the rough and low levels of oxygen of the high city made me cough. It took me days until I learnt how to encompass my breathing to my movement in this new place without getting really tired. It took me a while to learn how to see during the day, while the snow reflects the sun and blinds you, or during the night, which lasts much longer than the one in my homeland. How can you even forget how to breathe, or how to move properly? How could this be possible?

I had to learn how to use my senses, just like a newborn would do. The ears to differentiate the horns and noises of the cars, sirens, and millions of people who I cross everyday on the city. The eyes, to look for the traffic, for the crowds, for my belongings. The nose to check for a good smell among all of this smog. The hands to count the money, and to know what is safe to touch. The tongue to identify all of these new flavors —and to know how to appreciate them... I still have not get used to the bland the food is here—.

Then, I had to learn everything again. To walk, to talk, to read, to write. People understood it, but they saw me and treated me like what I felt like being too: A baby in an unknown world, someone who needs help, and protection. Someone who needs to be talked slowly. I found it exasperating... until I realized that I was just like a toddler. I needed that protection. I was in an unknown and terrifying world, and I had... just so many questions! What is this? Why is this like that? How do I do this? Who do I need to talk to for this? This world... This world is so weird!

Maybe... It's not so terrible to see the world as a child sometimes.