Let me ramble.

As my sister once aptly observed, everyone in my family has a grasp on the art of the personal essay. I don’t think she meant that we can all whip out a perfectly written piece of creative nonfiction at the drop of a hat—although maybe my dad could; he used to be an English teacher. My mom probably could too. She’s a tormented genius. I think my sister just meant that we like to reflect on our own personal experiences, a lot. We’re probably all obsessed with ourselves. And, we all have a flare for writing. Put those together, and you have an environment ripe for personal essay creation. So, I guess you could say that writing about myself comes naturally. It’s genetic. I also genuinely enjoy doing it. Especially in school. It’s fun to insert my personal life into my academic life. I justify my enjoyment by reminding myself that many scholars do the same by researching topics that speak to their personal interests, even if they never use ‘me’ or ‘I’ in their work. They dedicate years of their lives to these me-search projects. That’s what I did for my undergrad history thesis, at least. I found a gap in the scholarship about gender, society, and England’s most famous opera. I explored this very niche area because I wanted to write about women’s issues, opera, and England. I’m obsessed with all three. Plus, I have personal connections to all three: I’m a woman, I sang opera, and 23andMe told me I’m 43% English. Maybe, I’m just so obsessed with myself that I couldn’t imagine spending such a long time on something that had nothing to do with me. Which leads me to another reason why I love writing about myself—it lets me explore my murky, possibly negative personality traits and really face them. For example, I chose to focus on my own vanity and its relation to my social media use for this week’s personal essay assignment. How fun!