Personal essay experience

The process I used to generate ideas was talking to my boyfriend. After searching tirelessly through diaries and old vacation photos and racking my brain for ideas only to hit a wall in an effort to think of something to write, my boyfriend ended up being my best source for my inspiration. He suggested that he say things aloud to me that he and I had done or experienced together and if something stuck with me then we would expand on it further to see just how much I could write. This process took about a week or so and then once I settled on the idea, I still talked the experience through with him to make sure I could capture it as it had happened, and make sure I detailed the moments I remembered as being important, and why. I struggled with picking a topic, too, because I wanted to make sure it was appropriate for the audience and not anything too personal to share. It had to be a topic that would have enough "meat" in it to cover a couple of pages and most of those times have been personal experiences I didn't want to share so it was difficult to choose one that would include a lot of detail and experience without giving away too much, yet still complete that part of the assignment that has a universal topic most people could somehow relate with.