[287] Introduction

I'm attempting to write a collection of personal essays and wrote this introduction to it. Please let me know what you think!

I was stumbling around in my dorm room last night when I had a series of what (at least at the time) I believed amounted to major revelations. They went something as follows-

1. Historically, I have spent my entire life reading, not because I believe it is good for me or because I enjoy it (although I do) but because I live in a perpetual state of rebellion.

2. Everyone around me (mostly other students), is also rebelling. Everyone in the world - well, at least most people in the world – is fighting something, regardless of the stories they tell themselves.

3. I am trying to articulate what exactly I am rebelling against. This is why I write.

I suppose this is what my college would decribe as ‘knowing myself,’ although knowing myself became significantly less enjoyable once I discovered that ‘myself’ was a bit of an ass. But a part of me – the bright, hopeful part of me that I am proud of – hopes that you will find notes of your own struggles in my writing, that somehow, it’ll help you towards lighter days.

I promised myself I wouldn’t be clever. But I will try, as best as I can, to tell the truth of some of the movements in my rebellion. Most of the characters will be fictional, most of the events distorted to a monstrous scale. But I hope that the essence of what I’m trying to say will bring you, not only new insights, but also a sense of the connections we share.

Beneath the weights we carry, we are beautiful and heartbreaking and utterly unextraordinary, and in this moment, we are not alone.

Critique: Claire's Vignettes