I once found myself lying on my bunk inside my cell, waking up with a desperation that made me feel how insignificant my existence was. I went over the memories of my life, and at that time, I felt I had lived through so much, and that gave me the delusion of having had a hard life. That day in a California youth authority in Ventura County, the urge for this book was born. At the time, I didn't know it, but whatever misfortunes I felt I had had up to that point were only a minor part of the life that awaited me. The lie that I was ready to cope with a society that I hardly knew anything of was soon to become a rude awakening with a lifelong learning experience. I feel fortunate that in the midst of my ignorance, I have been able to learn certain lessons that have helped me pull forward and rebuild my life along with a wonderful wife and amazing kids. The struggle has been real, from being born in a country that was, at the time, fighting a war against communism to coming to a country at twelve years old and, by fourteen, being homeless in the streets and getting sentenced to twenty-five years to life for a crime that I didn t commit. Yet the hardest part was getting out and really learning what life was about, and through that learning, I find myself today writing about this brief memory of my life.
