The personal narrative essay was something that I was, well uncertain about. The topic of reflecting on your home and what it means to me was a touchy subject for me as I had many unpleasant memories. For me it was difficult to convey my feelings into words in this essay, I struggle with certain parts and felt like I couldn’t finish. A lot of people who I read their drafts of their home were positive and I wanted to write something positive as well but if I did I know that half of the things I would say would be fake. What made me want to continue writing about it even though it was a struggle was that I wanted to tell that having a home isn’t all positive.

When I reflect on my home I see that it is more than just a place where it shelters me but also a place where I am influenced by the world, a place where I am held and imprisoned, a place that I am molded and taught by the people around me, and a place where it serves me and has many functions that I can use for any purpose. When I think of the social aspects of my “modern” home it is not limited to just me, my family, and the outside world but also the separate families that live in this household as well and how we communicate with one another and connect. We mainly focus on the appliances that make our home modern but we don’t focus on the people, many of us including me are squished together with different families in a thirty-story building or maybe in a cramped small two-story house with a basement. We would usually keep to ourselves from other people but when living in a small building there will be times that we would intertwine with each other, learning and freely getting to know each other and I think that what makes this house I live in is modern. We are compacted together and use as much room as possible but it doesn’t limit us entirely and because of this we learn new things from one another our thoughts and various other things. Though by living together in this small compacted household there are effects that it can have on people, positive but also negative as well for living in a modern home for a long period.

    Some people are meant to live in a modern home as it has many benefits for them such as receiving information quickly, living comfortably, and having objects that would serve their purpose to whatever their hearts contend to however by living in these homes there are sacrifices to be made. These sacrifices may be minor such as living space or perhaps living in an area where it is dangerous and it affects you or perhaps something major such as your mental health. From personal experience living in a modern home at first was had its perks as I had everything that I needed to live and to make my life more comfortable and my mind has gotten used to living in it but over the years as I grow and continued to live in this modern home it had gotten to the point that I find it aggravating to live in. I don’t think aggravating is the right word or maybe there isn’t a word that can express how I feel living in my home, it’s like you and your friend hanging out and your friend makes you watch his favorite movie again and again while he enjoys it and your just tired of it or bored because you know every scene or trying to figure out the meaning behind an art piece and getting frustrating not being able to understand it. When living in my home for a long time I noticed a routine having the same conversation with the same people walk in the same cramped and narrow hallways and rooms it’s all the same. The sun barely breaks into my room because the houses next to us are so close to us leaving a narrow alley, the ground is paved by concrete where no greenery is shown it’s starting to make me crazy. I wonder if this is how inmates feel when imprisoned as if there locked up wild animals wanting to get out of their small rooms with no sunlight, modern home for me is a prison and it just makes me insane as if I’m becoming an animal.

    The majority of people will tell you that the meaning of home for them is something positive for it’s a place where they feel safe, comfortable but the idea of home isn’t limited to a  physical place but also the connections and relationships they have is considered a “home”. From previous reading, a good example would be “Now We Are Five” the writer David Sedaris talks about the structure of his home and what it means to him not a physical place but something that is built on family and connection. When he explains the impact it had in the loss of a family member there “homes” aren’t what it was like before and it started to feel as if their home was falling apart. A specific scene I would like to talk about is when “Toward the end of the week, I came upon my father in Amy’s room, sifting through the photographs that Tiffany had destroyed/Under what circumstances had this been ripped up? I wondered. It seemed such a melodramatic gesture, like throwing a glass against a wall. Something someone in a movie would do.” you get this sense that their sister Tiffany didn’t feel like a part of the family or just didn’t resonate with them. And when reading more about her about how she blames her family and miss her Christmas get together with them like missing the airplane or having worked at the last minute it tells a lot that about her that the things she did not being with them and talking to them and blaming them made them farther apart with each other. They try to get her to come back to her family to her home but the damage has been done and you see how it is very different from a physical home to one that is built with connections and relationships. 

    When reflecting on my “home” what makes it reflect on modernity isn’t just the technique and materials to construct it or the objects and appliances that were added to it over the years but the way it’s integrated into the neighborhood to society. The outside of my home is made of red brick and held together by cement with iron gates around it but the thing is you won’t think it’s home at all but a building, a building that is unknown to you because of the way it looks like with the other buildings around them rectangular shaped with a flat roof. With rows of them along with my neighborhood and the way, it was designed with its diamond stoned design on its side and its concrete stairs it almost looks like someone wanted to do something new, to experiment with the neighborhood you can see almost every house and building made with brick and the design on it are almost the same. I’m not sure who designed them or if they were working alongside the government creating this neighborhood but when building it’s almost as if this is their way of showing their idea of modernity when construction. As of right now, you can get a sense that my home is being built upon with new ideas from people such as adding new designs but also making the house efficient as it can by adding new technology that would be beneficial for me and my family, that’s how I think my home reflects and shaped by modernity.