High School Essay Winner: What I Love About Framingham

Lucy Matzilevich, a Framingham High student, was one of two winners of the Framingham Library’s Homework Center’s essay contest.

Below is her essay:

At 42 degrees latitude north and 71 degrees latitude west, lies Framingham, Massachusetts, a town rich in historical sights, small businesses, and unique natural landmarks.

From the quiet, grassy slopes of Callahan Park to the thickening bustle of Framingham Center, this blend of suburban and city lifestyle is called home by over 50,000 people, making it large enough to be a city. But as a resident of Framingham, I know that the best parts of our town reside in the smaller details, the ones only a person living here could know about.

What I believe makes Framingham stand out from other towns is that the Boston Marathon, one of the oldest and most famous races in the US, runs right through the heart of it. Not everyone can say that some of the world’s greatest athletes like Geoffrey Mutai and Shalane Flanagan have cruised down the streets we drive to work on everyday.

In 2013 though, the Boston Marathon changed rapidly from a fun-filled outing to an unthinkable tragedy after bombs exploded by the finish line. A week after the bombings, Framingham held a vigil at the Town Hall. Those who were there may remember how out of the candlelight, we created a feeling of hope that found its way out of the tangle of fear, anger, and grief that everyone had experienced recently.

The high school is another aspect of our town that makes it a great place to live. High school is when everyone’s personalities turn inside out, so that all the difference that we had been trying to conceal finally make an appearance. This can have both positive and negative impacts for students, but I think Framingham has excelled at helping everyone find their niche. I found mine in the Framingham track team running, racing, and meeting others who were strikingly similar to me. In a small town, the variety of people is limited, but at Framingham High School, it is easy to find people who share the same interest, values, and personality traits, for they may be right across the hall.

Joining the Framingham Track Team my freshman year continues to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I have learned lessons that I constantly apply off the track, such as it doesn’t matter where a person starts in a race, but where that person ends up. The team has become somewhat like a second family. We succeed together, we suffer together.

Through win or loss, snow or rain, hard day, easy day, and everything in between, spending time in the program has always left me confounded of what I would have done had I not shown up for practice that very first day. For me it was the Framingham Track Team that changed the town from being a house to a home. A house is the physical space a person occupies, but a home is where they live.

But Framingham is more than the sun of its parts. It is the lights twinkling on the common at Christmastime, hung carefully strand by strand. It is the neighbors calling each other up after spotting a fire truck roaring down the street to make sure everyone is okay. It is the way we all know each other’s business in the best possible way, whether that be through knowing what play the high school is putting on that week or remembering who doesn’t have a snowblower to clean their driveway after a storm. What makes Framingham special is that is a town large enough to be a city of its own, and yet everyone is surprisingly close.

We are no Paris, Italy, or Rome. People don;t usually come here to see something extraordinary, tourists don’t flood the bus stops during the summer. But I think that the essence of a town should be measured not by how many visitors it attracts each year, but by how many people can look around and say they can’t imagine leaving anywhere else. The thing about Paris, Italy, and Rome is that the people who visit always come back. Whether that be for reasons other than the fact they couldn’t imagine a life outside of Framingham, for me it would be missing driving by the waterfall near Keefe Tech or walking through Cushing Park that would eventually pull me back home again.

Framingham is my Italy, my Paris, and my Rome, and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.