What Makes You, You? Three Life Experiences That Have Shaped Me

A few years ago, as a sort of icebreaker exercise, I was asked to reflect on a few unique circumstances and life experiences that made me who I am today. After giving it some thought, I settled on three: death, immigration, and a cheesy documentary I watched in high school.

As I was cleaning out some files this week, I found the presentation and it made me smile.

I wanted to share because I think this is an exercise we can all benefit from doing. Just thinking about it to yourself, it can help you see where your motivations and values come from. You can more clearly see the meaning you made out of the raw material of life you had to work with. And, if you are comfortable enough to share with others, these kinds of stories are really helpful in creating deeper conversation and relationships.

While I'm just sharing three here, there are surely hundreds of others. My sisters would need a whole book chapter. Maybe I'll write about those another day, but for now, here's how death, immigration and a cheesy documentary continue to shape how I am today:

Death

I was born into a grieving family.

My dad's younger brother, Elmer, was killed in a car accident at 18. He died just a little more than a year before I was born. He was getting ready to start in his first semester of college at UW-Milwaukee and was going to share a room with my dad. Instead, my dad lived alone that semester.

My family always told me growing up that my arrival brought a lot of joy at a time they were still navigating through an unimaginable loss. And, as I grew up the adults around me were still processing it. From a very young age, that experience made me acutely aware that not everyone gets to be old. I was scared that I wouldn't and that I would lose the people I loved without a chance to say goodbye.

Having now made it to middle age, I'm not sure you ever actually shake that fear. And, I know now also from personal experience you don't always get to say goodbye to people you love. Life can change in a moment. But you, and the world, still go on. And yet, even if you are grieving you can still find moments of joy.

If you know me as a positive person, this is where it comes from. There are days I forget, but I always try to start the morning touching my heart for a few beats. To take a moment to remember that it could be my last day. And, that during the day I might come across people who are carrying immense grief I may never know about. It reminds me to be kinder, to take life less seriously and to spend my time doing things that matter to me.

Immigration

My Oma and Opa moved to the United States from Bochum, Germany in 1960. While they were newlyweds and had only planned to stay a few years for what they thought would be an "adventure," they ended up raising a family, buying a house and starting a business.

Though my Opa passed away more than 10 years ago now, my Oma is 91 today and still living in the same house I grew up in with my parents and my aunt Tina. While of course there are many obvious ways this shaped my upbringing: foods we ate, games we played, how we spent our weekends, there were many other impacts.

My grandparents were kids during World War II and the stories from their childhood have had a huge influence on my worldview. The town they grew up in was bombed heavily. My Opa and his family had to move across the country to live with other relatives after the home he grew up in was bombed out. My Oma still has vivid memories of how scary it was to take cover in the bomb shelter. Later during the war, she and her sister were evacuated out of the city. She left not knowing whether she'd see her dad again. Having grandparents that have lived through war will teach you how important it is to value peace.

And, there's another, maybe more surprising impact it had on me and how I see the world.

Some of the clearest memories I have as a young kid were of adults around me correcting me about things I knew were true for me. There was a time in elementary school we were asked to share our favorite foods. I said "rouladen." But, then I was told I couldn't pick that food. Maybe instead I could pick pizza, a hamburger or mac and cheese?

Often, when I would go to the grocery store or another errand with my Oma, cashiers would ask me questions or to repeat what she was saying because they said it was too hard to understand her accent.

By 5 or 6 years old, it was really clear to me that adults were not always right, often impatient and some found differences inconvenient, not interesting. It still influences me a lot today. It's made me appreciate that what I think is 'right' is usually more about what my experience has been, that most of what we might think of as 'right' is not a universal fact. And, while you can make someone fit into whatever box you tell them they must fit in, you will not change their truth.

On my best days, I hope it makes me more patient and curious when I meet people that are different than me. On most days, when someone challenges me, I think it's probably why I can be a bit stubborn. (Only a bit).

A Cheesy Documentary I Watched in High School

In my high school economics class, our teacher Mr. Roders showed two documentaries in class that had a tremendous influence on me: Affluenza and Escape from Affluenza. I remember at the time thinking they were really cheesy, but the message resonated. (As I was putting together this post, I actually found preview clip on Films for Action so you can judge for yourself.)

Affluenza features a number of interviews with folks of all different backgrounds. It explains how our culture often tells us that more material goods will make us happier, but that it usually has the opposite effect.

Could there have been a more liberating identity for a teenager with no allowance whose budget for clothes and other fun things relied mainly on the earnings from my part-time job as a pharmacy tech?

While I'm sure my interpretation at the time was more based in angst and righteousness, I'm grateful I adopted it because I think it had a big influence today on what I most value: relationships, laughs, hikes in nature, writing, connecting with friends, learning new things. It's also fitting that I got this message from a movie because that's one of my favorite ways to learn more about the world and the experiences others are having.

It was fun thinking back on what has made me, me. Do you ever think about what makes you, you? I'd love to hear!

A few photos of me -- with Oma and Dad; with Opa, with Mom, and still one of my favorite foods, rouladen.