Naperville has practically been my home for all of my 19 years. When I think of Naperville, I think of home, I think of our cute downtown area, I think about all my family and friends, and I think about how much of a bubble it really is.
The “Naperville bubble,” has always been a joke throughout town. And the “joke” is actually a harsh reality, though some who live here don’t even recognize it.
Inside of this bubble, you can find high schools that rank nationally. You can find a police car on every street. You can find each elementary school student with an iPhone and every high school girl with a pair of Uggs. You can find the high school parking lots filled with mom and dad’s expensive rides. You can find an almost 100 percent graduation rate and almost 100 percent of students moving on towards college. You find SmartBoards in every classroom and a laptop or iPad for every student.
I have fond childhood memories of freely playing outside, running around beautiful parks which are in abundance, attending summer camps and taking lessons for every extracurricular activity my parents could get me into.
This was all a possibility for me, because I grew up in "America's safest city."
Naperville could possibly be a town straight from a movie, with beautiful homes and their large green lawns.
What you find is pure privilege. What you find are endless opportunities.
This is not what the world truly is.
Outside of this bubble, only 30 miles away, you find a crime rate that’s one of the worst. You find a shooting almost every weekend. You find poverty, you find extreme homelessness. You find hurt, and struggle and you find no white picket fences. You find little opportunity. You find a shattering public school system. You find horribly corrupted leaders.
You find pain, almost unimaginable to many those who live in this bubble.
Life in Naperville is good. Life in Naperville is great. But Naperville shouldn’t ever just be your life.
Ignorance can be bliss, but ignorance is just pain for the entirety of humanity if you are given endless opportunities and success and do not share it with those less fortunate than you.
The first step is truly understanding how privileged you are. The “bubble” stereotype is true, but not for all. Many here find horrific, crippling pain in life. Many here are not well off like some neighbors, they may not have the whole world ahead of them like everybody outside this bubble imagines they do.
Being a member of this “bubble” should never downplay any struggles you may have. Even being a member of Naperville, you are entitled to hardships. Nothing in this world is free or easy. Even for a Naperville resident.
But understanding the privilege that surrounds you is still needed, even if you do not necessarily fall into the exact stereotype.
Life is not easy, life may have blown up in your face but you are still in a place where you have a chance to begin again and to succeed. That is needed to be realized, as well as the fact that there are too many who do not have the same chances.
It’s one thing to realize this by looking at news and reading about tragedy around our world, even our country. It’s another thing to leave the bubble, attempt to pop it by yourself and truly begin a life somewhere else.
This is what every Naperville resident needs. Sure, you’re more than welcome to return once you’re older, but you’re only doing a disservice to yourself if you never leave.
You’ll never see how others live, you’ll forever be disillusioned by this foggy bubble. Your ignorance is bliss to you, but it’s harmful to others. Naperville isn’t the world. It may be your world, but it isn’t a true representation. Not everybody gets it easy, it’s your duty to yourself to open up your eyes.
This will only add to your diligence, to your hard work, to your passion and to your purpose. It will only make you grateful for the life you live and to never, ever, take what you have for granted.
I’m proud and forever thankful that miraculously, for some reason, my life was chosen to be one where I would find opportunity and live where I never fear for my safety; where fear doesn’t swallow me whole.
I live in the safest country in the United States. I live in a bubble. And it’s time that I pop this bubble.
