Personal essays… personal essays…
You know, the problem with sharing personal essays— is well, they’re personal.
I decided to share my essay with my fiancée. We’ve dated for a year now and we have gotten know each other extremely well! Or at least I thought so.
You know, the problem with sharing personal essays— is well, they’re personal.
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| Photo from: christianpost.com |
As she read my personal essay all she kept repeating over and over was, “I thought I knew everything about you!” and “Why have you never told me about this?”
Suffice it to say it actually rattled us a bit. How much do
we TRULY know about each other? Do we know each other as well as we thought we
did? Are we ready to get married? Are we actually ready?
The personal essay is
a form that is so unique and intimate that it provides a space for reflection
that even fiancées don’t tend to bridge frequently. After contemplating all this, the only lame excuse I could give her was, “well, it never came up.”
She gave some advice on the rhetorical side of my personal essay.
She explained that some symbolism was vague and I would be better off to state it more fluidly with the rest of the tone of my paper.
Another idea she had was to change the timing at which I interjected thoughts of the Book of Mormon within the events of the story.
I love the advice she gave and I’ll be sure to implement them for the final draft of my essay.
This post got me interested to read your personal essay--to see along the lines of what she didn't know about you. I also agree that personal essays bring something out that maybe we don't even bridge the gap between ourselves often. Taking the time to put into words our thoughts, experiences and emotions can be powerful and take us on a course we weren't even expecting. I like how you pointed that out.
ReplyDeleteLike Lizzy, this post made me curious about your personal essay. I also had a similar experience in reading my personal essay to my roommate; we both learned new things about each other and understood each other a little better.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with knowing someone but not knowing someone. There is so much to who we are and experiences that make us who we are that we can't share everything or if we try and do so we get distracted and forget minor details. Exactly, it's personal and not everyone knows about the small details in our lives. I'm intrigued to read your personal essay now to get to know you better.
ReplyDelete