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Introspection

sam room details balcony
Endpaper

sam room details balcony

Part of Sam's wall decorations in her room junior year of college.

sam junior year room
Endpaper

sam junior year room

Every square inch of Sam's walls, and even parts of her ceiling, are covered in decorations this year.

sam room freshman hs
Introspection

sam room freshman hs

Sam's room freshman year of high school. After freshman year, she resolved to hold onto every single scrap that represented a moment she found herself in.

room cover photo
Endpaper

room cover photo

My collage brings to mind precious experiences that I’d have otherwise forgotten. It’s like a library of my life, which challenges the ephemerality that my memories can easily take on.

room cover photo
Endpaper

Nesting in Ephemera

I sliced up some magazines, printed out a few photos from my camera roll with a sticker printer I’d just received for my birthday, and stuck it all above my bed. The mere presence of color, and the memories each small picture held, felt like a balm — something consistent and bright and mine to return to. With a couple scraps of paper, I’d planted roots.

Srija Graphic
Introspection

Srija Graphic

We go to bed expecting that we will wake up the next morning — that our loved ones wake up the next morning. Paranoid that this simple ask wouldn’t be granted had me regularly waking up at 3 a.m., wondering if I would again open my phone to a wave of calls, texts, or Facetimes to deliver some unfathomable bad news.

Srija Graphic
Introspection

Seeking the Past

For a while, I couldn’t help but to think pessimistically about life. What if this phone call is my last? What if this joke is my last? What if this outfit is my last? After all, friends, family, and circumstance remain victims of life’s volatility. It felt rather odd to be working toward something; what if the future I’m hoping for isn’t realized? What if the future isn’t realized?

kate home introspection
Introspection

kate home introspection

On the subway, you’re between where you were and where you’re going: everywhere and nowhere all at once. No matter how hard you try, you can’t pin yourself down.

kate home introspection
Endpaper

Anywhere I Go

When you lose the trappings of the familiar, you have no reminder of who you have been, or who you are supposed to be. So being in new places, at least at first, is both terrifying and exhilarating: You get to move a little more freely, losing the weight that expectations and environmental cues hold.

Salt Lake City Temple
Endpaper

Salt Lake City Temple

It was strange, returning to that personal mecca. It was here that I had made pilgrimages throughout high school and college, where I had implored God for strength and guidance. Now, even as someone unable to enter beyond its foyer, I found myself praying.

Salt Lake City Temple
Endpaper

A Soft Place to Land

I didn’t want their God to die the way mine did.

summer away from home introspections
Introspection

summer away from home introspections

Six writers each reflect on their summers, looking back on the new routines they made across the globe — and the personal growth that came with it.

New York, New York
Introspection

New York, New York

Summer ended up being everything all at once.

Gabarone, Botswana
Introspection

Gabarone, Botswana

Living in Botswana was watching moonrises and mixing up sample IDs and learning to say hi to strangers on the street.

Los Angeles, California
Introspection

Los Angeles, California

I miss lazy afternoons sunbathing alongside two Great Danes and one little mutt.

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