I wrote my college essay on my perception of the town I live in. I've grown up in this town my entire life and journaled almost everyday about my time in it. I used a continuous metaphor that I wrote in my journal to get the message across about this place and the people I've encountered.
I live in a paper town
paper houses, paper roads, paper people. and it’s not that card stock type of paper, but tissue paper. one that you can see right through, one that blows away in the wind. i live in a page of a coloring book where everyone is a cookie cutter image of the next, living on a blank page. for this is all I know, all I’ve lived with. a perfect little town for perfect little people. from above, it truly does look perfect. perfectly laid out, perfect money and power, perfect looks and brains. but does that all even matter, when you look down and feel unfulfilled in the life you're living? when you start to color your page in the coloring book, the paper houses, paper roads and paper people; will it last? do i choose to color in the lines or dare to venture out and make the page my own?
for seventeen years i have colored outside the lines, pushed to be different from the rest. but I am yet to find anyone who cares about anything that matters. living in a paper town being told to conform with everyone else. but it is hard to be you when no one knows the real you. sometimes i find myself becoming a blank page floating in the wind. it's hard to always color outside the lines, but how I choose to color is the mark i leave on this world.
in my years in this town i have been ripped apart countless times. i’ve been greatly affected by the transparency of living in the tissue paper around me. every time i build myself up, i strive to use the struggle i faced and never be as blank and thin as what affected me. but there are days when i feel i am just as dull and colorless as what's around me. i am stuck on the same colorless page with no lines to color in. waiting for someone to make me into the same cookie cutter image as everyone else. some days it seems that would be easier in this town. waiting for that one person or thing that I think will add just the right amount of color to my page. i find myself often here, having to look back on the pages from before when I colored outside the lines and pushed to be different. reflecting on the past, having to remind myself of my happiness and what makes me who I am.
what i’ve learned is that there will always be paper towns, there will always be paper people searching for desires they will never find. but I will not be that paper person to never find them. what sets me apart from a town full of paper is how I choose to bend the lines or if i choose simply to conform to them. i truly thank my paper town, for the remarkable journeys it’s taken me on and the learning experiences i would’ve never gotten from anywhere else. it's paper, but it will be missed, for paper is my home. as my life in my paper town is coming to an end I am excited to take my color wherever i may go. my life has always been full of paper and now i'm excited to turn the page.
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