Personal Narrative: The Woodlands

I was born in The Woodlands because my parents wanted to raise a family in a community with a positive environment: top-notch schools, parks, and trails. As I have grown, The Woodlands has grown with me. In my lifetime, the population has doubled. Corporations have relocated here and opportunities for work have exploded. Buildings have sprung up all over. In our Houston satellite community, we enjoy the culture of a nearby diverse city and benefit from the wealth of its industries. Our community started with nearly no diversity, but we've grown rapidly every year as new people move in, brought by economic growth. People have moved in from all across the United States, North America, and the world. However, The Woodlands is a sheltered area. The issues plaguing society seem to disappear under the cover of our trees. Poverty is nonexistent, police brutality has not been an issue, and in an area where various ethnicities live side-by-side, the issues of racism and xenophobia is mostly absent from our lives, despite the daily news we hear from across the country. I hold no illusions; I know that I live in
I live in a modest home in a middle class neighborhood, not a mansion in a gated community. I've never lived a life of wealth, but I've certainly never been in poverty. That's a compliment to my parents: they've kept us in a stable home where we've never worried about whether or not we would have a meal to eat or a bed to sleep on. But that stability has turned into stagnation. Our home became crowded, with increasingly less free space, and not enough money to upgrade our standard of living. We simply can't afford to add on rooms that we badly need, nor can we afford to move on to a larger home. I'm done with living in a cramped corner — although I'm going to be moving into a college dorm (which will, of course, be smaller than just about any house), I'm going to have more opportunities than ever before and a newfound