What objects tell the story of your life?
My first instinct when I think about this prompt is to list objects that have value to me - things that remind me of good memories I’ve had over the years or close people in my life. Maybe you have a favorite toy from your childhood (for me it’s a cardinal toy I used to play with at my grandparents’ house), or a gift from a close friend that you cherish. But that’s really not enough to cover our entire lives. Our life story is not just a few meaningful objects we collect over the course of our lives; it’s the interactions we have with other people.
What represents us is different for each person in our life. For example, the only thing the cashier at the grocery store knows about me is that I bought a container of strawberries that one time (and to be honest, they probably don’t even remember that). My parents, on the other hand, know almost everything about me. Probably more than anyone else in my life.
But sometimes I feel like even my parents, the people that have known me longer than anyone else, don’t really KNOW me. Sometimes they ask me things like, “What did you and your friends talk about at school?” It seems like a simple question, and I admit, I always think it’s kind of silly to ask, but when I think about it, they probably just want to know more about who I am. It can feel kind of overbearing when they ask questions like that, but knowing what I talk about and how I act with my friends is a key part of understanding my personality. And when I spend time away from them, I’m building memories with other people that reveal a little bit of who I am, and my parents are missing out on that. They don't know anything about what my personality is like outside of our house. They know everything about me, yet they know nothing.
Just like me with my parents, we all have a way of choosing what part of us to reveal to people. Being transparent and authentic around everyone is one of the hardest things to do. Even writing this essay, I constantly have to check myself to make sure I’m being completely honest. So of course, unless you reveal every single thing about you to every single person you meet, everyone has a unique perspective of you.
Now, it’s impossible to choose just a few objects that represent myself when each interaction I have represents a different part of me. Rather, what represents me is the collection of memories that come from everyone I’ve interacted with, ranging from the people that probably don’t even remember me, like the grocery store cashier, to my parents.
I really like the unconventional answer that you gave to this question. One thing I will say though is that I think you should introduce the idea of your most prized possession being memories earlier in the essay because I found it kind of difficult to relate your answer to the prompt. Overall, your essay is really good though.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with Katya on this one - I was a little confused on where you were going with the prompt until the very last sentence. I would suggest not using the cardinal example because it made it seem like you were about to give more examples of tangible items that you cherish. Like Katya, I would say in one of the first couple paragraphs that your most prized possessions are memories.
ReplyDeleteI thought that it was interesting that you took the perspective of what objects other people could understand your life through, rather than what objects represent your life to you. I think it's maybe something you could've made a little more clear in the intro kind of like what Katya and Stella said, because I think the point about memories being the most important object is directly tied back to your point that experiences you share with other people are the things that help them understand you, or at least an aspect of you. But other than that, I liked your conversational tone and I though it was a great essay!
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