Dear 32 acres of pine tree forest and boulder mountains,

My family and I call you, “The Property.” But that name does you no justice. It sounds so simple, so barren and lifeless, so ordinary and unique. The opposite of everything you are.

My family loved spinning the tale of how our family ended up at The Property. Just outside of Cotopaxi, Colorado, my great grandparents built their house 9,000 feet high in the rocky mountains in an isolated community called Indian Springs. I listened, amazed and uncertain, as the story continued with the twist that both of them had seen this spot in a dream and set out to find it, succeeding only after a couple of years. Their dream led them across the Arkansas river, up a windy dirt road surrounded by impossibly high pine trees, and through moss-kissed boulders clustered haphazardly throughout the forest, as if the gods had shaken them in a cup and rolled them across the earth like dice.

They built their house without help, just each other and a few lengthy stretches of optimal weather. They also installed a solar panel, dug a well, constructed a greenhouse, and in only 5 year’s time they were not only living comfortably in a cozy, two story masterpiece in the spot they had dreamed of, but they were self-sufficient.

My grandma also added that in her dream, my older sister Kyla and I would find treasure somewhere in the mountains on The Property. My daydreams filled with Cherokee artifacts and chests of rubies and turquoise.

When they shooed us off, we didn’t mind. We had games to play. I soon forgot that story, but it always lingered in the back of my mind.

Life on The Property was magical. We ran barefoot across all 32 acres. We knew every climbable tree, every cave that was bear-less, every pathway across the jagged disfigured rocks. Chasing each other from sunup to sun-down, we blended into nature like two baby fawns.

We created and played a game called “Niamalis.” In Niamalis, a group of orphans were forced to flee their miserable life at an orphanage because of a series of earthquakes, and upon climbing a nearby rock formation, they accidentally fell into an invisible portal leading to the magical world of Niamalis. Each orphan had unique magical gifts, from the ability to shoot fire from their palms to the ability to shapeshift into and communicate with birds. It was a wild story, and we played it every single day.

But the summers would always come and go much too fast.

During the school year, we lived in an uncomfortably small trailer with our mom, stepfather, and other little sister, Aspen. My parents never left their room, as they were hiding a drug habit I was too young to understand, and so my mom micromanaged us from behind the door, from sunup to sun-down.

By the time I was 6, Kyla who was then 8, and I were responsible for getting ourselves up and ready for school, making our own meals, doing our own laundry, cleaning the house and the dishes, and watching our younger sister, Aspen, who was only 3.

I battled a lot of frustration during that time. Wanting to have nice clothes for school but no laundry soap to wash them, wanting to take a bath but feeling scared of the thin brown layer of something that coated the bath tub wall and floor, wanting to make my stomach stop feeling so hungry but not having the food to soothe it, trying to make friends but struggling with bullies and indifferent teachers, wanting clean dishes but not having the dish soap to clean them, were a few of the major frustrations I faced daily.

I thought that if I could somehow complete these impossible tasks our mother burdened us with the responsibility of figuring out ourselves, that she would be proud of us, and want to spend time with us. Any time at all. But even during the times the house was stocked with laundry detergent or dish soap, my mother was never satisfied with the work we completed, and she remained in her room, untouchable and out of reach.

Things got worse when one of my mom’s friends shaved all of my hair off after I had tried to cut a section of it myself. It was not only unnecessary, but it had a devastating effect on my self esteem and my social life.

I started getting into fights at school because I couldn’t tolerate being bullied. My peers knew I was a girl with a shaved head, but they were relentless, insisting I was a boy who had become a transgender. It seemed like the teachers and staff were not aware that I was a girl, gently trying to persuade me to quit saying I was. I would just stare at the ground, furious tears welling in my eyes. I was sure they could have looked at my file and seen an “F” in the gender category, but if they did, they didn’t show it.

(Since I am part Native American, it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch for Cheyenne to be a male name.)

Whenever my mom would come to the school, it felt like a twisted sitcom, where the subject bounced around but never was directly said. I kept hoping that someone would confirm that I wasn’t a boy but a girl, and that the students shouldn’t be harassing me about my gender. Unfortunately, at the time I didn’t have the words to express that need and it always slipped through my fingers.

At school, I was an outcast in a war zone. At home, I was a “quit buggin’ and finish cleaning!”

I felt very alone, and powerless to make change.

But then summer would come, and my sister and I were free, running barefoot through the dry tundra grass, hair billowing in the wind like sails, cheeks flushed, smiles finding our faces once more. The Property was like a whole other world. It didn’t matter that we were orphans, or that our home was a disaster, because we had fallen into Niamalis, and if we trained and practiced our skills, we were undefeatable.

As life moved on, each twirl of the Earth’s rotation around the sun brought more and more chaos. When I was 13, they sentenced my stepfather, to whom I had grown very close, to 48 years in prison. I was homeless and on the streets one Christmas when I was 15, and part of me wonders if the rage I felt could have been the fuel that kept me alive in the bitter Colorado cold. When I was 21, I had my daughter, and my favorite Aunt Teri passed away, just barely missing the chance for them to meet. We lost my great grandfather and this year, when I am now 29 years old, we lost my great grandmother.

I hope one day I will get to find the treasure that she predicted we would find in her dream. I hope I can bring those excited smiles back onto my sister’s face, and I hope I will hold on to the faith that miracles can happen.

Dear 32 acres of pine tree forest and boulder mountains,

You have given me strength, and motivation, and peace. Some may never see you as more than random trees and rocks, but I see you like an old friend, whom I love dearly.

One could even speculate that the treasure had already been discovered. During those sunny summer afternoons, among small barefoot prints pressed into the dirt, wild flower crowns and giggles that echoed for miles, we had found an escape from our pain and sorrow.

My family still lives there to this day, and I’m sure my family always will. Because we know that it’s not just the beauty and the memories that make it so enjoyable.

Dear Property, you are also proof that Heaven exists.

But Im In no rush to get to Heaven.

I’ve got a piece of it right here.

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