This gilded cage is spacious and comes with every modern amenity, it makes me contemplate whether being caged is really such a bad thing after all. The pictures on the wall are posed portraits, visions of True American Happiness.
My mind swings to my own humble abode...so so many miles from here. It's peeling tacky wall paper, shag carpets circa 1972, shockingly blue paint on the living room wall. Perfect home for struggling newlyweds; the kind too caught up in their own romance to see the rest of the world. A family, my family now lives there-unfortunately not conveniently blind. Now, shame is a new reality to me. And what have I to be ashamed of? A house where two adults live paycheck to paycheck trying to provide for their two children, and see that their third makes it in the REAL WORLD.
No pool table for us, no swimming pool outside, instead we gallivant through the woods, finding scraps of wood to build forts and fairy houses. We scrape our knees, fall onto moss-covered rocks, then pick ourselves up and keep running. So now I see the other side, the family vacations at all the right places, the carefully casual clothing that only seems inexpensive-and now I miss my woods and my stepmother's hand-me-down skirts.
Much as I love contemplating glamour and excitement, I know that I would wither not so slowly. Soon, paper Emily would float from one engagement to the next, smiling, twinkling even, until one day a light breeze blew me away...
No. I much prefer my own tarnished life.
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