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Ecology of Self - Coggle Diagram

- - - - He has always told me that he wants my life to be better than his was, living with three other siblings in a low middle-class house in Richmond. And how he planned to accomplish that was to push academics and sports down my throat -- which I can say did work (but I'm taking credit for my success lol). He's a pretty traditional, often sexist, dad, who always told me to be independent to be able to survive on my own. So, I became an independent on-the-verge tomboy with daddy issues. My dad taught me all of the things I didn't want to be, and the parent I should be to my kids.
    - - My mom is probably the most influential figure in my life. She was the one who gave me insecurities about my body, made me move in the middle of middle school, heavily enforced the notion of being a straight-A student (alongside my dad), but was also the one I sought the most attention from, the one I tried to snuggle with, the one I tried to tell my feelings to, and the one who was always at home with me. This distance from her probably expedited my independence, and once I realized the bridges I tried to build as a child were burnt for good, I finally became the person I wanted to be in my clothes, personality, and heart.
    - - She taught me to bake and fostered an ideal of always spending holidays together - as our family isn't necessarily close-knit. As kids, she would spoil my cousin and me all the time and I always wanted to go to her house. But as I got older, I have some vague memories of her becoming more verbal and vocal about her not-so-great opinions, and her constant belittling of my great-grandma. She's made me understand little by little the insanity that one goes through when someone you love is dying, but also the harsh reality it has on the one who's already accepted their fate.
    - - The reason I don't believe in religion and why it's a cult is mostly from my grandma on my dad's side who we call Mama. From the time I could walk, she shoved the ideas of Christianity and of herself down my throat. Reading the bible, giving me books and bedtime stories of events in the Bible, writing letters with prayers for me to read, telling me to watch certain channels -- she did it ALL. In middle school, I was in this "demon" phase where I basically told myself and everyone around me that I was a demon in my past life and she pulled the Bible out, told me to read about demons, and essentially put her ideals onto some like 10-year-old kid. It was kinda traumatizing in a sense, but now that I'm older we can have conversations about it that's two sided (not really lol) and its a better experience overall.
  - - - My first real relationship, being with him helped me to introduce me into the world of love, friendship, navigating conflicts, conflict resolutions, recognizing my faults, and all of the childhood traumas I never knew existed. He also taught me I had an insecurity of people meaning what they say and saying what they mean.
    - - My first long-distance boyfriend and a big unknown since I met him on Fortnite (a fps videogame), I learned a lot about what it takes externally for a relationship to work: trust, hobbies/friends outside of each other, and a strong will to stick things out despite being able to end things with seemingly no consequences. Now my fiance, I've learned that love is more than just physical attributes or personality, but how your body, mind, and soul connect to the other person.
  - - - My group chat is a whole bunch of boys I met through Luke on Fortnite whom I've continued to have a friendship with for over 3 years. These guys have shown me different outlooks on life (most of which aren't so great haha) with some of them choosing not to go to college, dropping out of it, having siblings, moving across the country, getting arrested, and living on their own. They're crazy, stupid, annoying, but also the most reliable friends I've ever made.
- - - - While being in the Honors College, I've told myself I've wanted to be more involved in JMU, but also to get out of my shell. In that, I talked to some fellow Honors College students and decided we should start doing more activities -- and the trip to Montpelier was on the horizon. While learning about the man our school was named after and making new friends in Honors, Montpelier seemed like one of the turning points in my extervert journey. On top of that, one of the things me and Johnny (my fiance) agreed on in our relationship was to go to as many presidential houses as we could.
  - - - Cancun was my first taste of soil outside of the US, and a look into a different culture. Even though our hotel was open to many travelers and undoubtably featured more English/American customs, there was still this sense of "welcome to Mexico". My family and I tried to speak to the workers in Spanish, with some even thinking I was fluent (don't know how they could think that) and my dad would go up to the bar and order using the memorized Google Translate response. Going out to Tulum and some of the local beaches also showed the kinds of food, activities and people that live their.
    - - Charleston was the first trip Johnny and I took to a new place we had both never been before, but it was also his first time driving more than 30 minutes consequetively. I was apart of making milestones and I felt like a proud parent lol. I also got to see raimbow row and check off a place on my list that I've wanted to go,
    - - Myrtle Beach is important for a few reasons. Firstly, I've gone on family vacations there since before I was born, so it's a special place for kid me. It's also where I got my obsession with Firehouse and fueled my obsession with Friendly's. Myrtle Beach is also where my fiance moved to a few years ago, so I've taken quite a few trips there to see him. He also proposed to me at a hotel on the beach, and I proposed to him in the same place.
    - - The trip I took to Washington DC was a reminder of how big the world is, that the history makers really aren't that far away, and that you should NOT speed in DC. It was the first trip in a different city outside of Virginia and South Carolina that I've paid for a hotel, paid for valet parking and stayed away from anyone I knew. I felt like a real adult, traveling around the world to places I've always wated to go.