I have never minded being all on my own. If you asked my family and friends, they would say that I often prefer to be alone. In reality, I'm alone not because I want to be but because I'm used to it. I grew up as an only child in a house with two working parents. My parents would take turns picking me up from school while the others would work late hours. Sometimes they would pick me up only to drive back to work and leave me to draw on some scrap paper lying around. Among my closest friends and in my family, I was the only one without a sibling. But even back then, I never felt truly alone, as I had plenty of friends and my grandparents and cousins were only a short drive away. When we moved away from Puerto Rico, I left my family and lost contact with all of my friends. My parents were busy finishing up business with the move, so I was left to entertain myself with some books. Eventually, I made a couple of friends in my new school, but I still felt very disoriented and out of place. A year into the move, my family had started looking into getting a dog. For several weeks we spent our nights watching videos on the different dog breeds, how they behaved in a family environment, how to train them, how to take care of them. As a child, I'd always wanted a Yorkshire terrier. They were cute, they were fluffy, and you could tie their hair up in a little bow. Just what a 5-year-old little girl would want in a dog. I was already 11 at the time so I was more open to suggestions. We ended up getting a Cavalier King Charles named Lucy. My father had suggested it, partly because they were supposed to be calm and docile and partly because it was his favorite breed. Lucy is the opposite of calm and docile. I love her to death, and she drives me insane; three months into getting her, My bedroom door was ruined beyond repair from the scratch marks. Most importantly, I felt considerably less alone and happier than ever. The company of a person is very distinct from the company of a dog. A human has boundaries, and will also respect yours. A dog has no concept of boundaries and will lay down right in the middle of your bed no matter how big the bed is. A human can judge your actions and has the choice of voicing their thoughts. A dog may or may not judge you, but there's no way they could relay their opinions to you about how bad your singing might be or question why you are having a heated debate with yourself over a fiction novel. Lucy is a lot of work. She's loud, she sheds all over the place, she barks every time we sit at the dinner table or so much as linger in the vicinity of the kitchen, and she has a perpetually sad face that manipulates you into pitying her and giving her everything you want. But sometimes, as if she can sense it, she'll come to me when I'm sad and paw at my knees. She'll curl up under my bed as I do homework and keep me company. And she greets me every time I come back from school or work with her tail wagging.

There is a single constant in my life amidst the chatter of students in a rowdy high school classroom and in the middle of the night in the silence of my room. The mark of a pencil on paper, directed by my hand, provides an outlet for creativity in an environment where my voice often feels mute. The words I cannot express, have trouble putting together, I convey them in my art. Soon after turning nine, my father got a new job, requiring our family to move from the comforting tropics of Puerto Rico to the unfamiliar environment of the United States. I was upright in my anger, pestering my parents nonstop about the move as if they could stop the boat that had already departed the Puerto Rican coast with our belongings. Even now, my father looks back on that time with guilt, perhaps believing I still hold some grudge over it. But I had made my peace long ago, finding comfort in the soft graphite that glides across the pages where I can express myself fully. Similarly, I find comfort in the red cardinal I occasionally see perched on the branches of the trees in my backyard. Adjusting to life in the U.S. was stressful. I struggled in some of my classes and found it hard to get along with my peers. Even in elementary school, it seemed everyone had already formed exclusive groups. Although I was not unfamiliar with the English language, far from it in fact, the few slip-ups I made had earned me nicknames that had lasted half a decade. One of our first projects in fourth grade was to draw the state bird of North Carolina, a red cardinal. While working on the project, a classmate walked by my desk and complimented me loudly on my drawing of the small bird, asking me to draw one for her. Other classmates also praised my picture as well as our teacher. For the first time since the move, I felt as though I had finally made a place for myself. Through my art, I could distinguish myself from others. Through the doodles on a ripped piece of paper, I made new friends. Through the bright splashes of paint on canvas, I send gifts of love back to my family in Puerto Rico. Taking classes at the local art museum, I found a new family in the caring environment of instructors and other artists who share my passion. When my work was displayed in the student gallery, I began to realize that my future would be unfulfilled if it did not involve the pursuit of creativity. I wanted to be part of the sense of unity that came with standing in the middle of the galleries, where so many artists’ lives would join together. I am not sure where my art will take me as I continue to strive for progress. I have come to realize that art is not only a pretty picture. Art is a way of communicating; it is a community, the spirit of a culture, a form of progression, and the story of our history.