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........THE
FAMILIAR Vol 1, Iss 2..............................................................................................................................
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BEHIND
THE SCENES OF AN EMOTION LITERACY E-ZINE MISSION
STATEMENT THE FAMILIAR VOL. 1 ISS. 2. Missed an issue of the familiar? Click here to browse through our entire back-issue archive! |
a student's closing reflections Editor's note: The following piece represents one individual's process around the prospect of public revelation--an important component of emotion literacy advocacy. Several of our contributing writers, in their own ways, engaged with this process—you will see evidence of it in and around issue #2 of "the familiar." Each made their own decision on whether or not to allow certain pieces to be seen on the site. A conscious process was had by all allowing a certain amount of self-illumination in the face of reasonable uncertainty. As children we share, sometimes unwillingly, our toys. As teenagers we ease our way into sharing through talking. Our stories are most of the time more gossip than anything. Many of us don't yet know how to relate our stories. Sometimes we don't even recognize them as stories, and even if we do, most of us keep them locked away inside. Perhaps this is why adults share their stories and experiences the most. Not only do they have more experiences, but they have had more time to look back and learn from them. Usually it is as adults that we face our childhoods and deal with what happened, good or bad. Recently, though, I found myself, a 16-year-old girl looking back on my own childhood and analyzing it. I finally was recognizing the things that happened and had shaped my life and the person I had become. All of these things I had nonchalantly walked through and pushed to the back of my mind. Finally I felt like expressing my feelings about my experiences and I spent a night writing about it. I was happy with the process that I had gone through and all the new things I had found out about myself. I wanted to share the poem I had written with the world in celebration of the things I had discovered, so I gave it to Pamela to have on this site. But then I went through a dilemma of whether I actually wanted to share my childhood with complete strangers. I thought about who the piece would effect. First, it had already affected me with the writing process. Second, it could affect anyone with a similar experience, because they would feel like there was someone else out there that understood. Maybe if they could read it, they would realize and voice their story too. But the 3rd and most important at this time in my life was the people involved in my piece. I didn't want them to be affected in any negative way by my sharing of it. It was something I had to write for myself, and to share it with others would be nice, but maybe my experiences don't all need to be shared. With other pieces, it was just about me and my opinions and views on the life around me. This piece was maybe too revealing about others, to share right now. I had thought about maybe using a fake name, but ultimately I decided to not put the piece on the site. It was a hard decision, but maybe someday when I am older, a full-grown adult, you might find that childhood experience in the lines of a book. Until then, I am back to discovering more about myself.
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The
Familiar encourages you to explore your own use of language as a key |