A Prologue.

I am a cliche. If you want to read something about someone who does incredible things and who all the boys fall in love with, go read Twilight. I'm not that girl. I'm the girl who, like everyone else, wanted all that. I'm the girl who was born in a small town but who dreamed of city lights and world far bigger than the one she knew. I got a glimpse of that world once. I got a taste of air much cleaner and hearts much bigger. Then I was forced to go back to where the air is toxic; where hearts are bound up in suits and ties and then traded for financial security and a nicer car. Where I live, people spend breaths like currency and ask for nothing in return. Where I live, people are so caught up with themselves that they forget that their true value lies in their ability to help other people. I know this because I forget it all the time. In no way am I separate from this world I am describing. If anything, I am worse because I see it and do not have the strength to separate myself from it. If I could become anything in life, I would want to become separate from the world that wants nothing more than to secure its own happiness - I would want to find my happiness in what makes others happy. Maybe one day I will; maybe one day I will have the strength to become the person I and so many others should be.

Each morning I, like so many other women, put on makeup like warpaint to face a world that will judge us solely by what they see. I run til I hurt in the gym and occasionally starve myself to become the woman I see on the cover of the magazine. I throw up my food and go days without eating because where I live, it is more shameful to be overweight than it is to stick a toothbrush down your throat and force yourself to vomit. Where I live, appearance is everything. A kind heart is rarer than a perfect body and yet the second is considered much more desirable. I spend more time trying to perfect my body than I spend even thinking about who I really am. I am selfish; obsessed with how I look and not with what I can do for others. It isn't about me and yet I live like it is. I am cliche. I fight the same war every girl my age does and I, like so many others, have lost the majority of the battles.

Where I live, most girls dress the same and talk the same like they were made in an assembly line. Society tells them what beautiful is and, not realizing that they are trading themselves for some sort of prototype, they try to become something not nearly as beautiful as who they are to begin with. Most do it because they, from their most basic human nature, want to be loved. But in pursuing this, they lose sight of the most valuable form of love we have: love that is given to others. That idea has become lost, as love has become just as cliche as I am. Love is not roses or diamonds or some sort of song. The idea of love has become cheapened as more and more people are told "I love you" for the first time over a text message or given their first kiss in a movie theater. People deserve more than that, but for some reason, they often settle for a superficial rush that leaves them emptier than before. Love should be more like it is in the black and white movies: complicated, tough, but bold and much more meaningful than the half-hearted notion that has pervaded society. And is it truly love, if it is self-centered? Is wanting someone because of how they make you feel truly love?

This is the story of me attempting to become more than just another cliche. This is the story of me attempting to beat my eating disorder; attempting to become someone who loves others more than herself. This is my story. This is the story of the American girl.