Blog #10: Focus for Essay 2

Looking through my journal entries I noticed that most of my memories centered around a particular time in my childhood (from about 4 to 10). This must have been a particularly great time in my life for me to keep returning to it page after page. I'm thinking of writing a comparative piece about me and my sister Colleen. Because we are so far apart in age (almost 14 years) it might be interesting to focus on the differences between our childhoods as well as the things that remain the same. Sometimes I worry that our family dynamic has shifted so much that Colleen is being deprived of some of the things my brother and I had, but I do what I can to make sure that she has a wonderful childhood, no matter how different. ( I should also stop assuming that different means bad, in this case some things are worse but some are better) For example, I always wished I had older siblings to look up to and stand up for me, but I'm happy that my sister has two.
There is a set of stories involving memories of my grandparents, getting my first puppy and when my brother was born; I would like to incorporate these memories and maybe juxtapose them to some things I think my sister will remember about this time in her life. Of course there will be an element of speculation/ artifice to this because I will never know what my sister's thoughts about this period are until she is older and shares with me.
I want to express this through some sort of parallel narrative but I have not decided on the form yet. I also have to think of some sort of underlying theme that an audience can relate to. Maybe I can explore the idea of birth order/time and how it shapes us. Also I think I should be making specific commentary on family ties. I still have a lot of brainstorming to do.