Throughout college, I have become practiced in making sense of time gone by. As a history major, this has been required of me; thinking about events from multiple perspectives, with empathy and creativity, is the only way to better understand the past. This is a practice I have unconsciously brought into my everyday life, one I find myself doing when I go somewhere new or meet someone for the first time. How did this place get to be what it is? What about this person's past makes them tick?

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I do this for myself, as well, though I am considerably less deft when considering how my own experiences had made me who I am. The Evolutionary Essay, then, posed something of a challenge for me. Undoubtedly, I have changed a great deal in college, as a student and as a person; but how have I changed as a writer because of my experiences at Michigan and in the Minor in Writing? Am I a better or worse writer than I was when I used to be? Bolder or more timid? More or less able to make a future out of writing?

 

These are some of the questions I attempted to wrestle with in my essay, "Losing and Finding the Dream." This piece is far more personal than I intended it to be. As I wrote, however, I came to see that my changes as a writer during the past four years are inextricably linked to my changes as a person. Changes in my outlook on life moved in tandem with changes in my writing, and both have been subject to ups and downs during college. At times, this essay is melancholy and self indulgent; yet throughout, it is raw, and perhaps the most honest piece of self reflection I have ever done.

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To the right, you can find both a link to my (extraordinarily shitty) rough draft, and the final version of the essay. I hope you enjoy reading the piece, and that you get to know a little more about me and my writing through it.

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