The Lies We Live

small towns

  i wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days, before you've actually left them  

We come from nameless small towns, and live in old houses that people have stopped caring for. We work mediocre jobs and live in the moments between now and forever. We don't own expensive cars, or wear nice clothes, no one will even remember us when we're gone.

But I remember. I remember the days we used to sit and spill secrets in the back room of the library. I remember hating this place, and everyone in it. But not really, only because everyone else said they did, so I did too. 

I think I remember watching someone's vlog about their prom night, only to realize that mine was not anything special. At least, not to the average onlooker. But it meant something to me. I think maybe now I realize that the lives of kids from small, winter towns are not special, our lives are playing out a thousand times, with a thousand different kids. The only difference is that they are not us. 

When I was younger, I used to think that it didn't matter what happened to me. Because I was a fragment of a spec in the universe. I was nothing when stood against the rich kids of New York, or movie stars of LA. 

All those movies that made you feel that somehow you weren't living the best life, because of your city, or your friends, or your house. Because they never showed life how it really was: 

Real life is messy in every way you can imagine. The jokes are not articulate, or planned out; its the the little unexpected things that make you laugh or smile. You get angry and upset, and you feel like no one has ever been in the same situation simply because it wasn't cliche enough for someone to make a movie about. 

But I hope you know that the best stories are not filmed or written about; you can't see them in a theater, or borrow them from a library. You live them; every single nerve experiencing history as it happens, that is the novel you live for.

you live in. 

What you have to understand is that there will be a lot of fear and doubt about your place in life, trust me, I've been there. And I know I will find myself there when everything seems bleak again. I always thought it unfair to say that you would make the best out of each situation. Because you'd already accepted the fact that it was terrible to begin with. 

It is what you make of it. The inside jokes, meaningful conversations, the people you meet that make you a person. A person that's worth more than the mediocrity people say small towns have. 

Because we have our own stories. chapters that could stack up higher than the highest stories in New York. We are not small people. We feel things, say things, do things that you could never imagine. We are the people who take it from ordinary to extraordinary. 

The things, the buildings, and the riches may change, but in the end, we are still the same people. Put us in any landscape and we will make our mark; it doesn't matter if it's Manhattan or Scranton, we are happy because secretly, we know the world still roots for people like us. 

We are the civilians that fill up cities. And I know we look like mindless masses. But we see things, and feel things, and our lives are bigger than some landmark on a map. We grew up being taught that what we had wasn't enough, and of course we wanted the riches and the status of shimmering cities and exuberant people; but somehow we lived through it. 

Looking back, I think we even enjoyed it. Maybe that's why we're here today. 

We are the small stories that made it big.