- Apologies and Forgiveness: how to forgive without one, how to give an apology, and what to do when forgiveness isn't deserved but still expected. (Parents, exes, abusers, and friends)
- What do with what you don't remember: if you can't remember something you did that negatively affected someone else, what does that do to your own identity. (cousin and self)
- Finding the feminine in the divine in the midst of feminine pain (periods, assault, and miscarriages).
- Shame and Blame: looking back on past mistakes as a different person who still has within you the same person who did terrible things
- When places become characters with personalities and memories and connotations, and when places lose the meaning that used to be special: my high school, the place I had that first kiss, the temple
- Dying my hair red on my mission and rethinking identity, individuality, community, homogeneity and Godliness
- Rewriting personal narratives: how we pick out a narrative that creates and navigates who we are depending on who we are currently
- No longer believing that everything happens for a reason, but still wanting to believe in miracles and what to do with that (trails, sister's mission call, etc.)
- What I learned about myself while crying in public bathrooms
- She Used to Be Mine: rethinking the concept of a core self when trails changed me into someone I don't recognize and how that makes me think about my eternal soul
Saturday, September 21, 2019
Cassie's Personal Essay Brainstorm
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Cassie, these are all fantastic starting points for your personal essay. The ones that I found most intriguing were the one on feminine pain and the one about dying your hair on your mission.
ReplyDeleteI think for the length of personal essays we are required to create, "apologies and forgiveness", "finding the feminine", and "she use to be mine" would be great options. However, if we wrote shorter essays, I am intrigued by "what I learned about myself while crying" - I think that unique setting, vulnerability, and revelation would make an interesting story.
ReplyDeleteMost of these have a special you-ness to them, which is what makes a personal essay more than an essay. While all of these ideas have a panache that would make the essay worth reading, the most intriguing ones would include the most intriguing story. I suppose the biggest question for choosing a story is "when is this a good story and when is this a selfish story?"
ReplyDelete