Personal Essay #5: The Joys of being Alone

Do you like being alone?

As a kid, I never really liked to hang out with other people. When given the option to hang out with my classmates or sit by myself, I had almost always chosen to stay by myself. And while it would be entertaining if I had a specific reason as to why I didn’t want to hang out with other people, I honestly just didn’t want to. At the time, my imagination was more than enough to entertain me at any given moment, so, I would always prefer to be stuck in my own head over anything else. I liked being able to just sit in silence and let myself retreat into my own body instead of trying to talk to another person, and I found nothing wrong with that. 

And, looking back on how I acted as a child, I still don’t find anything majorly wrong with my want to be alone. After all, I would still play with the other kids at recess, talk during group discussions, and try to interact with the other kids when I could. But the more I think about it, I’m able to look back and notice how some issues I struggle with now stem from my wanting to be alone as a kid. For example, I tend to struggle holding proper conversations with people because I’m so used to defaulting on being by myself. My lack of interaction in my more formative years has led me to struggle with it now. Alongside this, it has also affected the relationships I have with the people around me, especially my little sister. 

If I had to describe my little sister in extremely simplistic terms, I would describe her as the opposite of me. Where I find comfort in myself, she finds it being surrounded by other people. Where I need breaks in between interacting with people, she’s able to jump from person to person without an issue. She’s the one inviting her friends to huge sleepover parties and days out while I prefer hushed conversations over the phone and quiet movie nights. And while my sister and I did have many similarities between us growing up, it was these base differences between us that put a subtle strain on our relationship. 

Despite how we interacted in our childhood, I feel like the contrast between my sister’s and I’s personalities only hit me recently. It was a warm spring Friday, and my sister and I were finally able to step back into the house after a long day of school. As we both kicked our shoes off at the front door and started to head upstairs, from an open window, I could hear the neighborhood kids riding on their bikes in the street. Upon hearing the commotion, my little sister sprinted up the stairs, threw her backpack on her bed, and flew down the stairs towards the garage, where her bike was sitting. And before I could even settle down into my bed, from my bedroom window, I could see my sister riding down the street with the neighborhood kids. 

It was at that moment that the differences between my sister and I really hit me. I watched her ride into the distance and couldn’t help but ask myself: am I lonely? before quickly bursting into giggles at the thought. Upon further reflection I came to the realization that I am not lonely, I just prefer being alone. Where my sister loves to be surrounded by people all the time I prefer to only be around people occasionally. And as I snuggled into bed under the warm rays of the sun with the sound of the neighborhood kids circling back to our front yard, a smile graced my lips, at the realization that both my sister and I were enjoying the start of our weekends, in whichever way we prefer.

Personal Essay #4: A Bittersweet Letter to My Love

 To what piece of technology would you write a “love letter”?

Technology has advanced quickly, and the faster it evolves, the more we fall in love with it. It started as a relatively healthy relationship, one where both sides had to commit and sacrifice parts of themselves for the other, us sacrificing our time, energy and money and the machine, its battery life and struggle to boot up. But the deeper into the relationship we got, the more we sacrificed and the more dependent we become on our machines. This reliance has gotten so bad that I would even dare to call it codependence. The longer we live with technology, especially portable technology, the more we give to it, and the more it takes from us. One such thing being taken from us would be our independence, and I can’t help but notice this in the relationship I have with my phone.

It started off small, my reliance on my phone, back when I didn’t have as much to worry about and as much responsibility. But knowing it was there was already affecting me. Growing up with the world at my fingertips, knowing that I could just look up whatever I wanted to, and not having to struggle to find entertainment or direction affected my thought process.

I feel like my dependence is most affected in relation to how I drive, or more specifically, how I get directions. I have lived in Champaign-Urbana my whole life, but knowing the general direction of locations and being able to come up with a route to drive there is a completely different story. So, I have found myself defaulting to looking up or just plugging in directions to wherever I want to go. This dependence is fine in theory but can have massive drawbacks in certain scenarios. One such instance would be knowing street names. Because of my dependence on google maps I have found myself very lacking when it comes to knowing streets in relation to each other. After all, I could just follow the arrow and the highlighted streets instead of being on the lookout for signage and directional indicators. And this directional dependence has its own drawbacks. I am more likely to trust my phone over myself, and that is just not the best way to go about life.

So, following the notion that my relationship with my phone is one of love, if I were to write a letter to it, it would mention some of the following: I would mention my thankfulness to be able to communicate and connect myself with people or things I would’ve never known existed otherwise. I would show my appreciation of it being able to entertain and inspire me to try new things or become more educated on the things I am interested in. I would thank it for being a constant in my life, whenever I’m in an embarrassing situation or trying to divert my attention to something else, it is always there to be my scapegoat and explanation.

However, just because I have so much to positively say about it, doesn’t mean that I am completely blinded to its cons as well. So, I would criticize it for its ease, because I have an easy way out, I don’t have to struggle as much as I would like to, so I’m unprepared if I don’t have my phone with me. It also prevents me from getting bored, which might sound nice now but will have negative consequences later. If I’m unable to feel bored, then I won't be able to figure out how to entertain myself without my phone. So, while I truly love my phone and all it does for me, it almost does too much for me to the point I get negative drawbacks. 

And so, because of all of this, I think it would be better if we took things a little slower, I need some more time for myself. But I hope we can stay friends.

Personal Essay #3: Hedges not Walls

 Do you have helicopter parents?

If I had to describe my parents in one word, I would describe them as hedges, not walls. The reason I refer to them as such is from the way that they have raised me, their ability to loom over me and demand respect, shield me from unseeable threats, and most importantly, their way of guiding me through the maze of life without trapping me down one simple path. For as long as I could remember, I had always been thankful for my parent’s more flexible approach in raising me. Allowing me to figure out what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it rather than giving me a predetermined situation that they wanted me to go through. And this is something that holds strong throughout my entire family. Every single one of my aunties, uncles, cousins, grandmas, and grandpas has always encouraged the upcoming generation to do what they want to with few but noticeable regulations. There was the standard: don’t get killed, don’t kill anybody, and don’t ruin your own life, but other than that, we are all relatively free range. And because this has always been a constant mindset within my family, I find myself confused and uneducated about different parenting styles. What really introduced me to these different ideologies was a conversation during journalism, second semester of sophomore year. It was during brain break, we were sitting in a rough rectangle in the middle of the room either on our phones or talking to the people next to us. At one point, a girl let out a big sigh and said to the room “my parents don’t let me do anything.” It was a short statement but the whole room shifted its attention towards her as she went on a spiel of her parents not letting her go out if she’d be back past sunset, not letting her take the car to run anything but errands, and only being allowed out of the house if she had Life-360 active on her phone. I was honestly shocked at her statements as, up until this point, I had heard vague stories of strict parents but those were usually shared online in a less than credible manner. Hearing it in real life made me come to a revelation that people really did hover over their kids, watch their every move, and control what they did in their free time. And when the girl stopped talking I expected the room to come to a similar shocked and confused state as I was in, but instead they started to agree and relate to her. Over the next 45 minutes I heard a cacophony of stories from a tame curfew to someone not being allowed to get their license until they can afford their own car. And I was sitting there with my mouth open confused as to why so many parents wanted to make these decisions for their child instead of letting their child figure it out themselves. Because my family has always had the motto of "they'll learn by doing,” whenever someone does something they were told not to, having such rules was never a necessity.

And so, as I sat there listening to my classmates talk about their parents, I selfishly became more grateful for mine. I thought back to all those frustrating moments where I asked my parents what I should do and them merely saying I should figure it out myself- and found myself thankful they did so. By forcing me to branch out and make my own decisions, my parents taught me how to evaluate my own situations and weigh the consequences myself so I could make the best decision. This way of learning through doing truly allows people to come to terms with what they’re doing and what will happen because of it, and I am forever grateful that this is how my parents taught me how to learn.

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I tried to make this essay more "blog-ish" than my other ones, but don't think I hit the nail on the head, is there anything I should do to make my essay seem less formal?

Personal Essay #2: What is a Role? My Role?

What’s your role in your family?

When I look back to when I first started questioning my role in my family, I’m brought back to a middle school assembly. Students packed squished against each other trying to fan ourselves to fight against the summer heat as we all turned our attention to a question projected on the school’s stage: What did you do this weekend? We all quickly turned to the people next to us and I found myself talking to a young girl whose name escapes me. She started first, talking about looking after her little siblings, helping her parents out with the dishes, and deep cleaning the house. She ended her story with a confident “I’m my parent’s little helper” and turned to me with raring eyes. For a moment I stuttered, my cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and I started to feel selfish. I hadn’t gone out of my way to help my family as she had. I had only done the things that would assist me, make my life easier like cleaning my room and doing my homework. And while the assembly ended before I could formulate my own response, the question began to eat at me for the rest of the day: what did I do for my family? 

From vague memories I remember taking the question to my mother, asking her what she thought I did for the family, and if there was anything else I should be doing. She responded to me simply, almost as an afterthought, “your role is to be my daughter, that’s all.” At the time, I didn’t completely understand what she meant by that, but I think the relief of having a “role” eased my mind enough to let me sleep peacefully that night. 

Now, I think I know what she means. She meant my role less of something I had to do or achieve but something I am. There was no list of chores or general things I had to do in my family to earn the role of daughter, I simply had to be a member of the family, one that would help when asked but wasn’t initially forced to. And so, the definition of daughter was left for me to figure out. And I have since defined it as an ever-changing experience formulated by my independence, rooted in my connection to my family.

When I was younger, “daughter” to me was simply defined as being a child, ever learning from my parents' experience to slowly garner my own baseline of independence that I would be able to grow upon. Today, “daughter” means someone who is independent, able to cook for herself, do her own laundry, manage her own finances, drive, and able to juggle school, work, and life in general with the ability to fall back upon her parents when times get tough or a shoulder is needed to cry upon. And looking into the future, I believe it would mean being able to go off to college without the fear of being too reliant on others, being able to create new opportunities for myself, and still being able to come home occasionally to warm open arms and a shoulder to cry on. 

So, if I were to meet up with my younger self, in that auditorium questioning who she was, and she looked towards me for that answer, I would answer exactly as my mother did. No job description, no requirements, just simply being a part of the family was my role and that is a role that I will continue to play up into adulthood and even after I am put into the ground because even though who I am will change, my role of “daughter” is constant.

Personal Essay #1: Embarrassment

Have you ever felt embarrassed by the things that you used to like?

When looking back at my younger self, I find myself gritting my teeth at a multitude of things from the words I would say, actions I would do, and even things I would like. And it is through this reflection of myself that I keep coming back to cringing at the things I used to watch and enjoy. 

One such thing that I can only look back upon now with a twist in my stomach would be certain youtubers I would watch, and what they would post. For example, I had always been into linear storytelling, and, with the increased solitude of quarantine, I found myself stumbling upon a collection of youtubers that would create their own stories, get a group of people together, and act out their scenes either in real life or across mulit-media platforms. However, there was one youtuber in particular that garnered my attention, creating her own stories and acting out the scenes in Minecraft with some friends and even interested strangers who wanted to step into the voice acting scene. What first drew me into her channel was both the quantity and quality of the stories she would write. At the time, her channel had five main series she had either completed or was expanding. One of which took place in the medieval era where the youtuber would build her own village and go off to explore the restraints of the world she created with lore that would expand outward and deeper the further into the series you got. Another series was much more manufactured, and impressive, in which we followed a young woman as she went through high school and into adulthood creating connections and reflecting seemingly dull everyday parts of life in a world full of magic and hidden hierarchies. 

When I look back now and rewatch the episodes that I hold so dear to my heart, I find myself heavily criticizing the series, especially the earlier works. I look at tropes and pairings that now feel repetitive and find myself pacing my room trying to overcome secondhand embarrassment more than actually watching the series. However, every once in a while, I’ll have the time to sit down and rewatch my favorite sections of the show, all of which in the latter half. And it is through those moments that I’m brought back to who I was during quarantine, a young girl rushing through her assignments in order to watch as much of her favorite series or being one of the first viewers whenever a new episode would drop. Occasionally it is during these rewatches that I find myself falling into a similar rhythm, raring to come home after a long school day, more focused on watching the next episode of my chosen series over doing my homework or studying. 

While I’d like to look back at what I used to watch and say that I have completely outgrown it, I cannot say so. I still find myself giddy when I have the time to binge an old show, seeing the episodes progress, knowing the ending and only finding myself more interested than the first time around. Because even though I’ve grown and changed from the person who I was six years ago, what I like stayed relatively the same: a good story, with a lot of time and energy put into making it happen.