Writing in Reverse

For this assignment, we were asked to select an individual from Bill Sulivan's Turnstile Photography Project, and observe everything about them from body language, to clothes, to accesories or items they were carrying, and create their story, who they were, where did they come from, where were they going, what did they experience before they got to this point..etc.  Below is my original story along with a photo of the individual I chose.

Meet Sean Louis. Age 35, originally from Houston, Texas. After being born and raised there, he decided he needed to change the scenery. He recently married his high school sweetheart, Alisha James, and they have a son, Cory, 8, and Mya, 4. Sean has always felt somewhat inadequate compared to his wife because she has been the main breadwinner of the household since they moved in together. Sean has decided to move his family to New York to gain a fresh start, but it is not going entirely as planned; he has been there for 2 ½ months and still does not have a solid job. He will find temporary work with one day projects, get paid, and come home feeling like a failure. Not to mention, his two brothers and sister all have successful careers, degrees, basically the American dream. Things are tense at home because Alisha feels as though Sean isn’t even trying, and that he is somewhat slacking on his responsibilities as a father and husband. Today is another day. Sean’s perspective is yes, it’s another day, but it’s going to be the same thing like yesterday, things are going to be the same, tensions are going to be high and I don’t know how much more of this I can take…here we go again. He is somewhat hopeful because his friend set him up with a job interview this morning. Sean, however, had a long night of arguing with Alisha, staying up with his sick 4 year old, and then going out for a drink early this morning, so he’s a wreck. But, he told himself today, “I am going to find a job, I am going to be responsible, and I am going to provide for my family. “ He then begins to think about this week alone: eviction notice, so much arguing that he doesn’t even want to come home most of the time, still no job, feeling like a failure, bills are do, and he is not sure what he wants at this point in his life. His daughter asking “Daddy, Daddy, when am I gonna visit your work?” that’s a pain he feels almost every day. How do you explain to a four year old that things are that simple as she sees them? His whole goal was to make a better life for himself and especially his kids, to give them things that he never really had the opportunity to experience, and as he walks through the subway turnstile, he ponders these thoughts, and tries to remind himself, today is a new day…