Do you wish you could return to a moment in your past?
“You look like the color of poop.” My pudgy, 5-year-old, poop-colored self couldn’t muster any words. She just looked down at her skin, ran into the bathroom and tried to wash the “poop” off her skin. At that point in my life, I didn’t understand the connotations my skin color had. That all changed on April 15, 2013, the day of the Boston Marathon Bombing. At 13, I was a bubbly teenager who thought she knew it all. Life was good. Life was simple. One day I was walking home after basketball practice, sweaty and ready for a warm shower followed by an evening curled up with my copy of Animal Farm. After my shower, I saw a new SMS from a boy in my class! The subject line read: Boston Marathon. Excited, I clicked on it right away. “Who did it? Was it your cousin? You don’t deserve to be here, I’m going to make you leave!” Confused and scared, I Googled “Boston Marathon” and my screen was inundated with stories of what had transpired. My heart fell to the core of the earth; how could this ha...