Growing up in The Woodlands, Texas, you hear the phrase “bubble” a lot. People around me have always complained about the narrowed point of view of our town by painting a picture of designer bags and dance moms encapsulated inside plastic borders. When I was younger, I used to keep the idea in the back of my mind, not sure how to feel about it, but the older I get, the more I understand my community’s gripes.
The first time I discovered the truth behind that image was a trip to visit my family in Green Bay, Wisconsin around the age of 13. There, people bundled up in coats for utility rather style. Kids played outside to explore, not just because their parents forced them together in order to chat about PTO meetings. Families lounged in each other’s living rooms all weekend instead of distancing themselves from the chaos. And on game day, the entire town had one big conversation starter, because everyone knows the Packers are the only exciting thing to roam that town in decades. It was definitely culture shock for an adolescent girl discovering
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He taught me how to be kind to those who work for you, how history and art teach us much more than our friends’ clothes, and how nothing substitutes hard work. This opposite montra to the on-going materialistic competition I live in has not only kept my feet on the ground, but it has opened my eyes to the scene around me, showing me contrast against the rest of my country. I starting looking at the way my peers ostracised different ideas or constantly expected something owed to them as lessons in who I did not want to be. I turned towards literature and movies as a yearning for outside knowledge, and I started imagining a list of places I want to travel to. Subsequently, my teenage years sprung a greater culture into my identity, and I am proud of the woman I stand as