I'm still having trouble coming up with a topic for the second draft. There are various stories that I could write about, but I keep coming back to the problem that plagued the first essay: how do I make the essay about something? I'm not afraid to analyze the situations I've found myself in, but somehow I can't focus anything on a particular topic.
For example, I have been thinking about the differences between friendships I've had in the past and the current group of friends I have now, and why this group has been better for me, and perhaps how I've been better for them. Hopefully, at least, I've been as good to them as they are to me. And I have no shortage of anecdotes from hanging out with these groups of people for years. The issue is, what would such an essay be about? The power of friendship? To do what? And that seems to be awfully cliched; however, it keeps coming to the forefront of my thinking about this essay, in a way that makes me feel like it wants to be written about.
The question is, what is writing about friendship actually writing about? Acceptance? Connection? Communication? Respect? All-of-the-above? It could be about my ability to accept the limitations of my friends, and how they have accepted my limitations. It could be about how one group of friends expanded my horizons while another group seemed to limit them. It could be about maturity, or the maturing process, and "when I was a child..." and all that. Or an older child. Hell, there are things about which I still think like a child.
I think I need to do some more free writing on the topic of connection and communication. As I was writing that last paragraph, those words jumped out at me from somewhere. I think there might be a focus hiding in there somewhere.
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