When You Were Young - Notes
“When You Were Young”
A series of vignettes that describe the time and life of important adults in my life at my current age, twenty-one.
“And sometimes you close your eyes
And see the place where you used to live
When you were young” – The Killers, When You Were Young
Overview:
Over winter break I am going to interview a number of important adults in my life, ranging from immediate family members, to other relatives and close family friends. I’m going to interview them, one on one and ask questions like:
- When were you born?
- Where were you born?
- What type of schooling did you have? High school and college?
- Where did you live when you were 21?
- Did you have a job?
- At what point were you at in your schooling?
- What did you want to be when you were growing up?
- What did you want to be when you were 21?
- What do you did you for a living/What do you do for a living now? Is that what you expected to be doing?
- What kind of relationship were you in when you were 21?
- What kind of relationship did you have with your family when you were 21?
- What kind of relationship do you have with your family now?
- Do you have any children?
- How old were you when you got married? Was it your first love?
- How old were you when you had you first child? Was he or she an accident?
- Are you happy? Why or why not? What makes you happy?
- Anything else that arises during conversation
- Also note – I plan on photographing the person at the interview, and will request a photo of them around the age of 21.
Rationale:
One of the main reasons I’m doing this is because, to be frank, I’m quite nervous about my life. I’m 21. Graduating college in May. I can’t tell you anything more than that, because I don’t know anything more than that. It’s soul-searching vicariously. I think that by putting my life in perspective, I might be more comfortable with where I am right now and who I am right now.
Format:
I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to release it upon the internet all at once, or in an episodic format. When I go home for Thanksgiving Break in a few days I’m going to sit down with my dad and interview him. I’ll then write up his story in a few different formats, experimenting with what I think works best. The project will be continued over winter break, in that I plan on doing all the interviews. Time pending, I will also begin writing my research up.
Finally:
I don’t know if any of this will actually help me. Hell, who knows if I’ll even go through with all of it. I’m so flavor of the week that I can hardly keep track of myself. I do think this is a very ambitious project I’d like to set out on, and I’ve never really considered myself an ambitious person, so this is a bit of a change. Right now, though, I’m motivated to work on this. Perhaps the impending the future was the push I needed to do something actually relevant with my life.
(Note: Wow. Two awesomely ambitious projects updated about in one day. I’m so good to you guys. Don’t yet view this as the circle of life, though. I realize it’s kind of uncanny that I update about the death of one project and the birth of another in the space of a few minutes. It’s different this time, though - When You Were Young is actually feasible. I think.)
