Living in New York is literally a movie, every day there’s something new. Everyday there’s a new family moving in. Every day, there is a child being born and everyday there is a taxi cab being called. New York is  like a mixture of every nation and every culture all weaved together  in one section of the world. Zadie Smith says, “We were white, black, Asian, tall, short, male, female, young, very young, and old.” (2) The diversity is fucking immaculate in New York, Zadie Smith didn’t lie.

 New York is resilient and beautiful, one of the most gorgeous things in the world. New York has everything one can imagine to have. But at the same time, every good thing has its flaws. Its like a atom, every proton has a electron; a plus for a minus. That’s how things are supposed to be, that’s just how life is.  My life in New York is like a film, a complicated but beautiful film. In her own text, “Goodbye To All That” , Joan Didion states, “I never felt poor: I had the feeling that if I needed money I could always hustle. I could write a syndicate column for teenagers…” and this shows that in New York, no matter what age, even if you’re a teenager or not, everyone here is always hustling, trying to make money by any means necessary.(229) Everyone in New York is relentless, and Didion is absolutely correct about that. Everything that happened to me here was  for a reason. I’ve seen it all and I’m only seventeen. My experiences here cannot be just simply written, because there has been a lot of awesome shit. For me however, an old white woman and soccer were very significant to me so far in my time at New York. These two aspects were two of the many very important highlights in my life.

An aged woman walks past everything that’s colored. The bodegas, the ninety nine cents stores, and past the old ice man, gloomy because he has yet to spit out, “coco mango,cherry.”  This old woman is indeed white, pure cocaine. Blue eyes and all. She was carrying baggage, striving but struggling.

            People all around were insulting her, insults and so on, for no reason. It was like this woman was walking uncomfortably, on a path of hot coal and fire. She walked as if her people were the ones who were segregated. If I had the ability to read her mind, it’s obvious that she required help.  Everyone was doing their own thing, no one cared to help her.

            I walked up to her, all positive. And I asked her how her day was going. She said, “ Im very tired my darling, I wish someone could carry my bones.” I then said, “ Yes, ma’am, I can really see that, that’s why I’d like to take your bags.’’  I then grabbed her bags, gratefully, similar to the way I’d grab my high school diploma, and then I walked alongside her, contently, like how I would walk on my first day of college. Before this woman could even spew a word, I thought about what my mother had told me repetitively, in her vigorous accent   “ If someone, is a different race and you don’t even know them and they needs help, don’t hesitate to reach out. It’s a small world; you might receive some need to receive such help someday.” These words have stuck onto me. It became a part of me.

        The lady had a victorious look on her face, as if she achieved something great.  I achieved something as well, because I was the only one to help her when she needed it the most. “Thank you so much my darling. God bless you! You’re going to be a great person when you age.” These were words by the old woman. 

Many people say that soccer is the world’s sport, the most aggressive sport known to man, or a game made for violence. People have both negative and positive connotations for this sport. It makes sense because the world is full of pluses and minuses; everything must be balanced out. This is how we live, and that is just how life is. With every good thing, there is always something bad. But to me, soccer has made my life a bunch of pluses. 

Soccer isn’t really popular in Manhattan. It’s mostly basketball. My old neighborhood was in between two opposing gang neighborhoods. Every now and then there’d be deaths and shootings, at basketball courts, parks and so on. A day never went by without an innocent candle being blown out. I’ve even seen people of my age picking up guns and knives. They picked up their fists, I picked up a soccer ball.

In my old neighborhood, I have always wanted to go to the park to play and kick about, but my mother worried that I’d end up on the news dead. I didn’t listen to her at all. I was hard-headed. I picked up my ball and played with whomever I found. Although I played street games, I played with all my heart, as if I was playing for my academy team. I played as if I was protecting my neighborhood .  But guess what, I didn’t care, the ball was my everything. It was my favorite pistol. The ball served as an escape for me. It was a way of escaping this cruel world. 

            Growing up, I really was a weird kid. Weird in the sense that I didn’t like things that others adore. I grew up in a black and Latino community, so everything was either basketball or basketball. There was no room for accepting golf or tennis. Every conversation was about basketball. The word  “NBA” was the new hello. 

            Soccer is my therapy. It has allowed me to get better grades, as well as pave my future. I could’ve been another teen, with a terrible mindset, and lack of knowledge, but it all turned around. It has allowed me to improve in many branches, academically and in the outside world. Soccer has allowed me to become a gang member; I care so deeply about where I’m from, and the things I do. I help those around me first before I help myself. That’s my rep. Life is really much like soccer, everyone and I, have goals to achieve. These goals are set on treacherous paths; a bunch of pluses and minuses, but we must get stronger and push through.

            “I suppose that part of the city’s magical beastliness is the fact that you can show up with the best of intentions, do what’s considered to be all the right things, actually achieve some measure of success and still find yourself caught inside a financial emergency.” (15) This quote from Meghan Daum “My Mispent Youth” relates to almost any new yorker. Although my experiences here were impactful and great, money is always the issue. New York is extremely expensive, and no matter what you do, money is always being spent, or owed. Money literally has New York written all over it.