College essay

This is the essay I wrote to get me into college. I really am proud of this piece.

            With my skin breaking from the pressure of the façade that is my life, adrenaline and fear traveled throughout my body I thought, “I am better than this.”  I sat looking past myself realizing I was trapped in my own life.   I was better than giving my all with the only results being complete wastes.  My heart was no longer in my body; it was on my sleeve.  I finally understood the vicious circle I put myself in, worst yet, I had accepted, as if it was all I had to offer.

    This acceptance led me to give into the madness the masked man offered me.  Even today, I don’t remember his face, the sound of his voice, or even why we met.  All the evidence I have of our meeting is the mask he bestowed on me, a mask I’ve worn ever since.  It was a mask as dark as night that covered my face for years.  This mask protected me from the father drinking to escape his depression from being unable to support his family, the mother who worked sixty hours each week, pushing her body and mind to the limit, leaving little time for her family or personal life.  My only sources of support in life were my older brother and sister.  They were the only two who understood, yet they chose anger and abuse over caring and compassion.

    Facing all of these issues growing up would have been a nightmare without the mask.  How does a child look his father in the face and tell him he’s an idiot for drinking his depression away, or encourage his mother to attempt to rekindle a personal life in the little free time she has?  I couldn’t, but the mask could.  The mask gave me a mature appearance that made people believe I “understood” the house I lived in. Sadly though, behind my facade, crimson tears rolled down my sleeve, wishing I could be selfish, wishing I could tell my mother to stay home, that I wasn’t ok with being alone another Friday night.  She would have stayed if I asked, but my false maturity made my mother happy, so I thought I was happy.

            As I matured, the mask started to fade.  It changed into an object that the people I love didn’t recognize and questioned.  Each time crimson tears flowed off my sleeve, the mask would get smaller and whiter. Showing that nothing not even the mask, could  save me from myself; I couldn’t be saved from my internal emotions, emotions that throughout childhood stayed suppressed inside me,  but as I aged became too strong to conceal in darkness.

            I seek life filled with my own personal renaissance, a time of enlightenment and self-change. These changes will allow me to control my life like the mask helped me control my life up to now.  The difference is that this control will not be done through lies and deceit, but through the embracing of education, the truth.