Wake up. It is time. The distant voice of some reporter summarizing the final scores on last night games, mixed with the sound of someone cooking breakfast made me face the unavoidable truth — It is really time to wake up.

Weeks have gone so fast that now it seems I've been here for years. I looked around the four walls surrounding me, hearing the leaves swaying outside my window to the early winter air, and tried to clear my head of an interrupted dream about warmer places and familiar faces  I stood up and looked outside, then the reality hit me right in the face — I am still here, in the political center of the United States.

It is a weird sensation, actually. I am now part of the whirlwind that’s driving me up and down on its spinning swirl; we all are. It was in that moment that I realized I've stopped trying to figure this place out, it just became a part of who I am—that trying to explain this city would be like trying to describe myself because it changed me —for good or ill—I am not the same person that got off that plane a month ago. I am the tiniest bolt of a gigantic machine that's been controlling the world for centuries now.

Thinking about my roommates, I found out we are all in the same entangled quest— the journey of trying to find out what are we made of. That we all came to this city with one thought on our minds — if we conquer Washington, D.C., we can achieve anything else. How wrong we were!

The path to Washington is neither about the city itself nor the people living in it. It is about us! It is about proving to everybody else that we are worthy of this city, that no matter how hard, powerful or complicated it is, we deserve to be here.

A couple of days ago, I went to a conference where there was this Latino guy talking about his experience in the United States. He said that living in here has not been an easy journey, but he also mentioned that this country was actually a place of opportunities, but that you have to be ready when that chance comes your way. Now I know what he meant.

Having this opportunity to walk, run, breathe and live Washington, D.C., has been a life altering experience. In just a month I've learned the value of friends, family, politics, diversity and all those tiny things I've never had a chance to truly appreciate before. I believe that sometimes having a comparing point could change your perspective towards life itself, and that’s precisely what this place has given me already.

By now you may be wondering about the sudden change on the way I write, more poetic perhaps. But I think that in any journey —either long or short— there should always be little reflective closures so you can appreciate the already traveled path. This is my first closure, the closing of a chapter maybe. Nonetheless, the whole story of my stay in D.C. is not over yet. There is still a lot more to be lived and walked, many things to be tried and known.

I looked away from the window and stepped outside my room. I am not even halfway there, but I know I am on the right way.