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.