I love my mom so much. I don't care if that's corny to say. I think on my next birthday, I'm going to buy her a present. I think that should be a tradition. The kid gets gifts from everybody, and he buys one present for his mom since she was there, too. It think that would be nice.

I saw other people there. Old men sitting alone. Young girls with blue eye shadow and awkward jaws. Little kids who looked tired. Fathers in nice coats who looked even more tired. Kids working behind counters of the food places who looked like they hadn't had the will to live for hours. The machines kept opening and closing. The people kept giving money and getting their change. And it all felt very unsettlingly to me.

Somos quienes somos por un montón de razones.Quizás nunca conozcamos la mayoría de ellas.Pero aunque no tengamos el poder de elegir de donde venimos,todavía podemos elegir a donde vamos desde ahí.Todavía podemos hacer cosas.Y podemos intentar sentirnos bien con ellas.

Ambos dijeron que tomara asiento y parecían hablar en serio, así que me senté.

I know these will all be stories some day, and our pictures will become old photographs. We all become somebody’s mom or dad. But right now, these moments are not stories. This is happening. I can see it. This one moment when you know you’re not a sad story. You are alive. And you stand up and see the lights on the buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And you’re listening to that song, and that drive with the people who you love most in this world. And in this moment, I swear, we are infinite.

So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybewe'll never know most of them.