Reflective Essay: Explaining Oneself Into Ten Photos

Trying to condense oneself into ten photos is no easy task, especially because it invariably makes one think about how it is one truly describes oneself and who one is in relation to the world around oneself. Nonetheless, it is something I must do. Therefore, allow me to endeavor to explain myself. We should start, I think, with my promise ring. I got it in my early adolescence for forty dollars, the first thing I ever saved up for and bought on my own. I regularly attended church in one form or another from age two until I was a Sophomore in high school. I have a lot of mixed feelings about the church. For one thing, the church also led me to one of my best friends to date, April, who is also one of my pictures. I met her through the church when the pair of us were moved into the Youth Group in middle school and instantly connected. In a lot of ways, I consider us opposites. In middle school she was a soft “emo/goth” who dyed her hair and fussed over makeup and I was her socially awkward but bubbly compatriot who had not yet learned the art of regular hygienic practices. She externally flirted with darkness while internally being a rather benign and soft spirit, I the reverse. It is especially amusing that our lives have led us to take …show more content…
I had it done when I graduated high school as a present from my parents. I have admired tattoos for a long time and I am an avid subscriber of tattoos that have a lot of personal meaning to the person with the tattoo. I chose the phoenix for a lot of reasons. Among the most important, the obvious rebirth: I was graduating high school and moving onto college, a kind of era of reinvention on its own. Additionally, it has felt like I have had to rise from the ashes on more than one occasion and that will probably only continue. I resonate deeply with the phoenix symbol, so much so that most people around Fullerton refer to me as Nix, which is, of course, short for