In My Own Shoes
When I arrived home from my High School Senior Life Skills Retreat, a retreat that focused on the importance of love, compassion, and acceptance, my sister gave me the first of many journals to come. Since then, I have kept some form of personal journal or sketchbook for nearly the last decade, and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to find solace in looking back through them. Surprisingly enough, I still relate heavily to my high school self.
In my journal, I found themes of love, loss, friendship, and identity, but also found humor in the level of urgency with which I wrote. Reminiscing on previous entries, I put myself in the shoes of my young self and found it therapeutic in the way it allowed me to reassess my experiences with hindsight. In turn, this series has become a form of therapy as well, by focusing on the pivotal moments of my life, but told with a comical outlook.
“In my own shoes” is a coming-of-age narrative series illustrating the idea of photography as memory. Memories change, develop, and grow with each person, however, memories in writing, or illustrated in photographs, are ever-lasting. It is crucial to retain one’s youthful perspective and to hold on to the truthful emotional response of original memories. Without original context, we have no basis for understanding or growth, and are doomed to repeat our own mistakes.
