I’ve always wondered what I would be like if I had different parents. It’s a pretty odd question, I know. But have you ever thought about it? What would I be like if my mom was Tina Fey? What would I be like if my dad was a biology major in college? What would I be like if my parents were Jamaican? The answer is obvious. I wouldn’t be me. It’s almost a circular question because I am who I am because of my parents.

 

Both my parents grew up in New Jersey in relatively small and traditional families. They both were pretty nerdy in high school (the cool kind of nerd they assure me though) and they both attended Princeton University where they met and would later raise a family. My dad studied History, my mom studied English. The same way one plus one equals two, history plus english equals two children who hate anything pertaining to stem. Every trait I possess is because of a trait one or both of my parents possesses. Every characteristic they have? It comes from their parents. How weird is that? We are all so unique yet everything about us comes from a long line of that trait.

 

If the experimentation process in my Writing 220 class has taught me anything, it taught me how I became me. Before I ramble about myself, let this serve as a warning: I am about to ramble about myself. In my final project the hardest cut I had to make to my work was cutting out intimate details about myself. So here I am transferring those thoughts here, guilt free.

In the first weeks of class I needed to pick a piece of writing. It would be the piece I work with the whole semester so it needed to be something I wouldn’t get sick of it needed to be something versatile. I almost chose a short article about Rick’s Bar in Ann Arbor. Then right before class I made the drastic switch to my common application essay. Much better. It was a series of stories, plenty to experiment on.

 

Experiment one rolled around and I realized that I hate the sound of my own voice. As I drafted the script of my could-be podcast I immediately knew I could never carry out this project. I take pride in my clear-cut and loud voice in my writing. However, the second I needed to read my work out loud I panicked. This project just was not doing it for me. I wasn’t excited about it. I realize now I liked writing the script because it felt like writing a diary entry. Diary entries aren’t meant to be shared aloud, so no wonder I didn’t feel comfortable reading it out. It wasn’t a speech written for the purpose of sharing, I had absent-mindedly turned my podcast into a diary.

 

This is the whole point of the experimentation project though. I learned one genre I did not want to turn my essay into.

Next up, an open letter. Now at this point one thing was really becoming clear to me. I needed my final project in this class to be something I could bring home in my suitcase in December and hand to my grandparents. The thought of handing them a semester’s worth of work dedicated to them gave me goosebumps. It was what I needed to do.

 

This is another trait my lovely mom and dad most definitely handed down to me. Rather, it is something my parents instilled in both my brother and I. We have been taught to hold so much love for our family, and taught to show this love. It sounds cheesy, I know I know. But I’m not kidding when I say since we could talk my brother and I were told to pick up the phone and call each set of grandparents on Sunday nights. We wrote thank you notes for the twenty dollar bills my dad’s second cousin handed us at Passover seder. Once I got my driver’s license, the first place I drove was to my grandparents house for my favorite dinner of homemade mac and cheese and crispy potatoes.

 

My first draft of my open letter was explicitly written to my grandparents. I wanted my audience invoked to be grandchildren. However as I wrote and wrote and wrote (the letter practically spilled out of me), I felt like what I had written was not an open letter but a private letter I would mail my grandparents and this just was not what I wanted. So, I changed the title at the top of the document to “An Open Letter to Grandchildren.” I then went through and meticulously changed every tense and every direct address to my grandparents. I deleted and I added and I worked pretty hard at transforming the letter. By the time of the deadline I knew what I had constituted a solid first draft and I forced myself to stop.

 

My scrupulous desire for my writing to be perfect is yet another trait I have acquired from my mama bear. At this point in my life I warily ask for her help editing my papers, just out of sheer fear of the amount of green “suggestions” that are bound to appear in every sentence. Yes, every sentence. I guess that it is the price I have to pay for enjoying to write. I have a mother who enjoys it and enjoys perfecting it too.

 

Nevertheless, I digress. Third experiment time and I know I need to stretch my bounds. I need to do something that maybe I am not so good at. In class, we learn about the zine. I would describe as a magazine exterior with a poetic diary interior, but really a zine is whatever you want it to be. Artistic I am not, but I decided to give it a try. As I planned out my zine I got so excited. This is what I want to do.

 

My page by page layout was perfect as I described it on words in a google doc. Then I got to creating the zine. I perhaps preemptively bought some crafting supplies at Michaels and started cutting and pasting. Flashbacks from elementary school started running through my head. Let’s just say I was never very good at cutting or staying in the lines.

So my dreams of zining came crashing to the ground. I am choosing not to look at this as a failure. Rather, I recognized that while I could carry out this project, it was not going to be what I excitedly described in my words. It was not going to be something worthy of a whole semester of energy. It ultimately was not going to be something I showed my grandparents. It wasn’t direct, and that is what I needed. Direct. Direct. Direct. Writing a letter was what I wanted to do.

 

And that dear friends, is how I ended up here, sharing a vulnerable but truthful and reflective open letter on my life and how I have come to value my grandparents. I think this shows though how I have really come to value my family as a whole. I find it important to check myself in this moment though and recognize how different family dynamics can be. The positive energy of my family is equivalent to my instagram profile, if you will. I am highlighting the best of the best. This isn’t to say there are bad days surrounding my family. I am just choosing to not post those moments, the same way you don’t share a selfie on Instagram when you are crying.

Thank you for understanding this.

And to all my family reading this — because I know they’re all going to find it —     thank you for humoring me. Enjoy and

I love you.