English Reflection Video

Hi, I'm Anna Williams and I'm gonna talk about

the memoir that I wrote at the beginning of the semester.

I didn't actually finish the final draft until

tonight because, um, I've been going through a lot this whole semester

and I talked about that a little bit in my letter

to myself when I revisited the idea of my memoir.

Um,

so

what I wrote about in the beginning was

the insecurities that I developed as an adolescent

over the status that I didn't obtain

that compared to all of my friends.

It was really sad being a preteen, worried more about, you know,

clothes and shoes and not going on trips

versus making slime. Like all the rest of my friends did.

It was also sad to have to put on this mask every day. Like I was having fun, carefree

to avoid, you know, breaking my family's heart

and telling them that I was

super insecure about, you know, us

being middle class, which is so absurd now to go back and think about that.

Um,

that's important to me because

through this year, I went through a really hard breakup and it was with somebody that

I genuinely saw myself being with forever.

Um,

and that sounds a little asinine as a, you know, 19 year old. But

in my perspective, I,

I genuinely cared about this person more than I cared about myself.

I let go of that relationship to try and, you know,

grow as an individual, which I think that I did

and I think that was just, that was the strongest decision for me at the time.

But now I'm going back or recently, I've been going back and revisiting

the memories that we shared.

And it's, it's made me, you know,

start to

have the same thoughts

about myself that I did

in middle school. And it's so sad to, you know,

really,

I guess, hold on,

sorry.

It's a little bit embarrassing for me to,

from a bird's eye view.

Look at

a college freshman and a middle schooler as

having the same perspective about themselves.

You know, every time

you're going through something hard,

I guess

because I was able to meet Jesus at the foot of the cross and start

accepting his words about me being beautifully and wonderfully made no matter what

and not being a

wretched and malicious person for not knowing who I was.

And instead of devoting myself to someone else trying to figure out who I even am

instead of finding my identity in them,

um,

that is what has made me adamant about,

you know, turning my insecurities around and pushing them

to make me go farther

in life than the snobby girls that,

you know,

might not ever understand what self worth is because all they've ever

done is sat around and been fed with a golden spoon.

Um, and I don't wanna be hateful, but,

you know,

I'm glad that

I went through hardships similar to what I went through

in middle school and ones that have been way harder,

ridiculously harder.

But, um,

was able to look at the scenario as a whole and say I would rather use this

and reflect on who I can be versus sit and look in the mirror and hate my reflection

because I'm going through something hard

and then,

you know, distract myself again so that I don't have to deal with it.

Then in 40 years go through something hard again and

go back to the mindset of a middle schooler.

I look at the whole idea of this memoir as really beneficial for me at least

because,

um

I look back at what I wrote

uh a few months ago

and

was able to relate to the thoughts that I wrote about

as a

college freshman.

Um

The whole idea

was to turn everything that I've been through

and everything that I'm still going through and everything

that I'm going to go through back to,

um

how that will make me a better person in the future. Thank you.

English Reflection Video

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