Shoving Down Tears But Not For The Reasons You Think

I got on the plane, and I cried like a baby. I was very self-conscious about it. Colombia’s culture is chauvinistic, but it wasn’t why I didn’t want to cry.

I didn’t want to cry because you learn in Colombia not to act suspicious on a flight because people will think you are a mule.

So I was very invested in shoving down my feelings because I didn’t want anyone to think I had cocaine balloons up my butt.

I had a connection in Phoenix, and let me tell you, being brown is a great asset to protect you against the sun’s punishing UV rays.

But it is a terrible thing to be when you’re going through TSA at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

In Phoenix, “Randomly Selected” doesn’t mean a label for randomly selecting people to pat down but more to describe the random selection that led me to be born brown.

I missed my flight from Phoenix to San Diego because of all the extra “massages” I got.

There were two more travelers with me who missed their connection: a man and a woman in their early forties who didn’t know each other.

The airline put us all in the same hotel. Once we were checked in, we decided to go to a bar near the hotel.

I get a drink, set it down, and go for a walk.

When I come back, these two strangers are aggressively making out. They said goodbye to me and headed to the hotel to have sex, of course. Because why wouldn’t you?

And it was a very shocking revelation to me.

Having grown up in a Catholic country, I thought, wow, “The morals are really loose in the United States just like they show in the movies.”

“This is going to be great!”

This is the last short essay on this series. Thank you for reading.

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