The Ideal by Sofia Giammarco
America’s color has long since faded to nothing more than a wisp of shadow. It’s a shadow made up of many other colors, beautiful colors that used to be celebrated, special. But those colors started reaching into different shades, desperately trying to grasp and tug at one another. For a country that boasts so many special people, so many special colors, America wears a counterfeit gray in shame, hiding it from the rest of the world. In a place filled with so many unique backgrounds, outlooks on life, and opinions, many still forsake their own hues, trying instead to recreate another’s, layering it on themselves like a cloak- a near-infinite number of vibrant tones slowly blending into each other, diluting themselves until one is not distinguishable from another.
If there was a color for every unique trait, or every special skill, and each person was a combination of those colors - the America of today is taking those colors and graying them out. Each color loses its shine, slowly loses its essence as it is forced to become something it was never meant to be. A beautiful singer filled with an aura of bright neon green, each note from her voice wanting to burst forth to form a symphony for all to hear- crippled with insecurities about how she’s different, how she needs to be quieter, prettier, skinnier. Slowly, that neon that wanted to make something beautiful, that wanted to create a world of song would fade, leaving nothing but a lackluster gray. It’s the gray that people see on the streets, when there are so many people, too many people, to differentiate the different and unique colors of each and every one of them.
Instead of embracing their flaws, girls cake their faces in makeup, boys bury themselves in sports, and schoolkids worry and stress over grades. That same stress hangs over them like a dark stormcloud, isolating them, adding to the ever-growing pool of gray. That stress forms a barrier, like a heavy rain that obscures the view: the ideal girl being pretty, the ideal guy being sporty, and the ideal student getting the best possible grade. The perfect, ideal mold will lead everyone to a place where those special traits and quirks slowly disappear.
But simply imagine the beauty that would be our country if everyone accepted themselves. If everyone stopped trying to be gray, if they all started being them. That singer could belt out neon green notes without worry of criticism, the only thing on her mind being whether or not she was proud of herself. If everyone understood that no one is the same, nobody identical, not even twins, then that gray stormcloud, releasing all of its rain and becoming bright again. The people would release all of their beliefs on what should be rather than what is. The gray being washed away from the rain would release a sea of color, all of the gray washing down the streets, leaving nothing but unique beauty and hues, with no one shade being the same. An explosion of color brighter and louder than the fireworks in July, springing forth into the world. Confetti flying from cannons to cover the ground in pure individuality.
An America to truly be proud of.