Senior Exhibition Field Practicum Personal Discovery

"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind." -Rudyard Kipling

I haven't alwasy been "a writer," in textbook definition. In my younger years, I didn't run around the neighboorhood, pad and paper in hand, jotting down the activites of my neighboors. The only time I can recollect such an odd practice was the summer after "Harriet the Spy" was released into theatres, and I just followed suit with the rest of my companions. However, I've been fascinated by the written word as long as I can remember. Part of this fascination comes from my mom, who is, like me, an avid reader. I'd follow her around incessantly, book in hand, begging for just one more story. When this routine wore thin with her, I'd scrounge up the local neigboorhood kids, and we'd act out a story, or invent one of our own. As a last resort, I'd pull out my old stuffed animals so that they could act out whatever fantasy I imagined. More often than not, I'd end up telling the story, rather than acting it out, much to the irritation of my impatient friends. It's only natural that this verbal creation of worlds would translate into written stories later in life. In lieu of the word "writer," I'd like to think of myself as a "creator"- of people, of stories, and ideas. Although everything I've created is somewhat based on real life (write what you know, right?), I'd never written an actual autobiography until my Senior Project. Rehashing important moments from my childhood has been enlightening, refreshing, and a little bit scary. It's amazing how seldom I looked back on the past and really connected it to who I am today. By forcing myself to reach back to the most personal moments, I've learned more about myself, my family, and people in general, than I thought possible.

I never thought that the autobiographical writing process could be so difficult. Unlike other stories which I just "fabricated," this one deserved actual research. To give an accurate depiction of my life, I had to determine who I was; something I'd mulled over in the wee hours of the night but never seriously pondered. Fortunately, I had more resources than I knew what to do with. Since the seventh grade, I've saved notes written in class, love letters to beau's, and kept a journal about my thoughts and feelings. In my room there's a hope chest, intended to contain my wedding dress and other things for when I get married, filled to the brim with notes, stories, and journals. I also began senior year by purchasing enormous notebooks, which I could fill with prayers, old movie stubs, magazine adds, notes, emails, and anything else that I could look back on to remember this transitory period of my life. Sifting through everything took days, not to mention the time it took to organize and read everything. I'd set out looking for specific papers (written about key moments and feelings about a specific time), but became so absorbed in those years I'd nearly forgotten, that I spent nearly twenty four hours straight sprawled out on the floor, pouring over the words which spilled across the pages like marching soldier ants. At that moment I understood the magnitude of the task I was attempting to complete. How does someone decide what's important enough to be included in a life story, and what should be tossed aside with the trash? It all shaped who I am. Having things to write about wasn't going to be a problem; stopping writing would prove to be a challenge. I began forming an outline of key events I wanted to include, and a description of the main characters.

I began writing the story in my old five-star notebook, an element of comfort in that revealing task of throwing myself out for the world to see. Every night I dedicated to writing an hour, which spoke nothing about the bulk of what I wrote from night to night. Sometimes the words came faster than I could write them down, and I scribbled furiously everything I could catch, my writing illegible. Other times I wrote a single sentence, the rest of that hour spent in quiet reflection. The most difficult parts of my life were the hardest to write about, and you can tell I struggled with it by the sentence structure and poor word choice. Sometimes I left things out entirely; there were no words for what I wanted to say. As a result, the most fluid passages are those which deal with events of little or no consequence; moments I enjoyed simply because they were a wonderful experience. In the early stages of writing, I grew very nostalgic, and tried to obtain contact with some of those people I'd mentioned from the past. Unfortunately, only a few replied, and those who did had changed, as people tend to do. It was disheartening to see these people I'd known so well transform into complete strangers, and I still wish I could picture them as the people they used to be from my childhood. I wondered if they felt the same way about me; had I, too, been changed by the ever-present continuation of life? My notebook suggested a strong yes.

The due date for our projects was rapidly approaching, and I wasn't even halfway done writing out the rough draft. My survival instinct suggested I speed up the process. So, I transferred everything I had on paper to the computer, making corrections as I went along. Unfortunately, our ancient word processor has no spell check, thesaurus, or helpful sentence-fragment alerts, so I was completely, 100 percent alone on this. I typed everything from the journal, and disaster struck; serious, undeniable writer's block. So you do what you can: push ups by the computer, play music in the background, use visualization techniques, whatever it takes. In one midnight episode of insomnia/writer's block, I actually believed tuning into John Mayer's "Real World" and dancing around the room in my pajamas would inspire the words to come. This is the insanity of a writer's life. I'd never felt the pressure to "get it done" before; writing was always an oasis, an escape from the pressure of school life and the real world. Sure, I'd been assigned essays and book reports in my AP English class, but those were fun, and short. More than once I wondered if I'd gotten in over my head. The ESLR papers were starting to look mighty good about a week before Senior Projects were due. I had absolutely no idea how I could finish this interminable writing.

And that's when it hit me. At about 3:17 A.M. on an idle Wednesday, I had what can only be called a Thomas Edison moment. Imagine a huge lightbulb positioned directly over my head, glowing with a force worthy of Las Vegas. I wasn't doing this for a grade. If that were the case, I would have just volunteered at some old folks home and explain that they'd helped me find the meaning of life. I would have fed some starving kids in Africa and proclaimed that I'd realized how fortunate I am to live in such a prosperous, beautiful country. Teachers like those kind of revelations. But that wasn't the case. My project is completely, totally, 100 percent selfish. I don't care if anyone reads a word I wrote, because I needed to write down everything for me. In seven weeks I leave for Basic Training in the Air Force, and I'm not even sure I know who I am. The reason I chose an autobiography instead of just some story; is that in writing about myself, I learned more than I could have from years of therapy (which some people might say that I need.) But in truth, this has been an enormous catharsis, a release of everything I've been holding inside for the past seven years. It feels good to be completely honest, without regard to the reaction of everyone else. This project gave me a freedom I'd never experienced even in writing my journals. I was forced to take an honest view of my life, and write about it all- not only the moments which made me look witty, or smart, or funny, or beautiful, but the bad moments, too; the times when I was completely irrational, devastated, and lonely. I could see my reactions to different situations, and the way I handled life. I uncovered characteristics I'd never expected in myself- some good, some bad, all unpredicted.

Here's what I discovered: I'm a raging insomniac who can't eat, sleep, or sit still when I'm stressed. Not being able to package everything into a neat little compartment frustrates me, and I have to overanalyze everything. I pretend to ignore my problems so other people won't talk about them with me, but really I'm very methodical in my efforts to solve them. I try to write down exactly what is wrong and come up with a logical solution. When this doesn't work I majorly stress out and direct my energies towards more productive activities (working out, homework, writing etc.) I tend to be a procrastinator, and put effort into my homework only when I'm in the "mood." In order to get in that motivational mood, I have to think about or see someone whom I admire being hardworking, and I want to follow his/her example. I'm really worried about what people think of me, avoid conflict like the plague, and rarely, if ever, yell at people. I live for moments when I can have a genuine connection with someone, and I can talk about anything without worrying about judgement. I have so many goals in life- what I want to do and who I want to be- but ultimately I think I just want to be happy. When I am old enough, I want to have a close family and husband who cares about the kids, and I want them to grow up in a healthy family environment. I give people less credit than they deserve; so many have been "there" for me when I really needed it, and I didn't realize until later what an effort that must have been for them. As a defense mechanism, I tend to push away people who could possibly be a big part of my life, and search out immaterial faults as an excuse to get away from them. I don't care about grades, except that I don't want people to be dissapointed in me, but generally I put effort into the activities I enjoy or find important. Mostly, I'm just this lost little girl searching for herself in an overwhelming world with endless possibilities. I think the reason I like writing so much is it's something I can control; I create whatever reality it is I want to project, and that's comforting. My autobiography was scary to write because I forced myself to be brutally honest, and I couldn't "cop-out" when faced with something I didn't like. I chose to write about my life as a means of discovering myself, and I discovered that I'm still searching for the real me, and probably will be my entire life.