Brooke Sturgis

Mrs. Bouch

AP Literature

August 20, 2019

Common App Essay

The smell of fresh paint, tying the ribbons on my ballet shoes, the sound of guitar strings

being played, buying new ingredients...what do all of these things have in common? The answer

is freedom, creativity, and an opportunity for me to create a world of my own without being

confined to something defined as right or wrong. Growing up I struggled to find my passion. As

I put in long and arduous hours learning math and science, I turned to drawing as a mental break.

I never realized the beauty in creativity until one day when we had a substitute teacher in our

seventh- grade art class. She told me to see art as 40 minutes out of my day where I could be

anyone I wanted to be, I could just sit, relax, and let my emotions guide the pencil. This concept

helped me to grow and mature, and at the same time lit a fire inside myself that I never knew

existed.

It was in the seventh grade when I learned my close friend had developed an eating

disorder. At 13 years old, I struggled to fully comprehend and cope with the situation,

questioning how do people expect me to just live a normal life when someone so important was

ready to give up? I was scared to say the wrong thing, scared to upset her, scared to live the life I

used to know; because the one thing I did not know was, why? To remove myself from an

anxious mindset, I discovered how to transform my emotions into something beautiful. The first

thing I began to do was paint. Not only did it help me, but I was also able to share my paintings
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with my friend. As I painted bright and cheerful canvasses I could see the joy it brought her and

she was able to hang them up on her wall. The beauty of using imagination and having control

led me yearning for more.

One thing my best friend loved to do before she got sick was to bake. She would always

bring me new creations when we spent time together and laugh about how she put too much

flour in everything. As she became sick, I noticed she stopped baking, and I wanted to help her

find it again. As I researched how to decorate cakes for her, I noticed myself falling in love with

piping and designing. Cakes were like a blank canvas for me, and I got to create whatever I

wanted, but most importantly, I got to watch my best friend rediscover herself.

During this challenging time, I grew more interested in music. I took ballet classes for

years and loved the elegance of patterns that were pieced together to add to a dance routine. I

may have struggled with pirouettes, but I never struggled with truly feeling the music. The

memory of this led to me learn how to play guitar. I watched numerous Youtube tutorials on

different notes, chords, and songs, and quickly fell in love with how the movement of my fingers

could create any sound I wanted. The real power of music was revealed to me when I learned to

play my best friend’s favorite song, and it was the first time I saw her big smile in months.

Going through so much pain, watching my best friend struggle, I learned more about

myself that year then I did in the thirteen years prior. Although I was doing all of these things to

help her, I ended up uncovering a passion within myself. I fell in love with the feeling of creative

freedom, and while trying to help my friend, I ended up helping myself, and I no longer live in

fear, because every day I have the opportunity to be whoever I want to be.
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