Seeing myself in Anne
I’m currently reading Anne of Avonlea. I grew up watching the series, and read some of the books a long time ago.
I’m a freckled redhead, and my real name is a version of Anne in another language; I have a March birthday too. As a little kid, I didn’t love my red hair, but I grew to embrace it. I would get in trouble, be ornery, feel deeply and have a deep sense of fairness. But above all, I just wanted acceptance. My mom, bless her heart, was the complete opposite of me, and yet, like Anne and Marilla, our bond was so deep, and she shaped me in so many ways. Time went by, life went on; I kind of forgot about the books, even when I grew up to become a language arts and literature teacher.
Now, many years later, I read the Anne of Green Gables series, and I can’t help but see a younger me, and my “internal self” (the one only I know) in Anne. So many little things about Anne feel awfully familiar— how Anne takes on life, romanticizes it, is optimistic about it, sees the beauty in the most trivial and banal, and lets her imagination run wild. How she feels so intently, how she paved her own path in her life pursuits, how her friendships remained true through the years because she was a true friend.
So… with all this being said, I cannot be the only one. Are there kindred spirits in this sub, who have found tons of little coincidences between their lives and Anne’s, and see this fictional character be a little bit of you? Do tell! How do you see yourself in Anne, or Anne in you?