A Picture's Worth a Thousand Thoughts

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THREE: The Pauper Gets Nostalgic

Photographs are a beautiful thing.  They capture a moment.  It could be something that means very little to us (as evident through the many selfies that bely the Internet.)  Or they can mean everything.  They can help us remember a time that we cherish, or in retrospect, a time filled with melancholy.

I've spent the evening looking at pictures.  I looked at pictures my father took of my dog's last moments on this earth.  I petted the screen like an insane person, hoping to retain the meaning my dog brought me while he was present in more than photographic terms.  I looked at pictures of pure happiness with someone who means the world to me.  And I looked at pictures of my parents clutching a baby version of myself... relatively new to the idea of parenthood, not fully sure of the future it would bring, but sure of the love that encapsulated them.

I looked at these baby pictures of myself.  Taken before memory both blessed and betrayed me.  And for the first time, I saw the story beneath.  I saw two people who have given me stories of life.  People who have told me of the fears of being parents.  The rockiness of relationships past that lead them to each other.  The turmoil they faced as a couple.  And the result of making it work.  I see myself as an innocent.  A child not yet tainted by the inner deviousness of the world.  A child whose mission that day is to pop the bubblegum of one of two beings she cherishes the most.  The most?  Try at all.  A child whose pure joy comes from the love the surrounds her.

And then I come back to the present.  Life is no longer based on the most purest of joys.  We question every action we take.  We sulk in moments of joy because we hope that there are bigger and better moments to follow.  We become our own worst enemy.

But this is growing up.  Pictures capture our memories, but they are meant to do only that.  Some times, we stare into the abyss of photography, hoping to grab ahold of the feeling we had at the moment it captured.  But the truth is, moments are fleeting.  They cannot continue forever.  Photos will be there to remind us that life is worth living.  And that we have lived in a moment worth capturing forever.  And if you are lucky, you will always be able to look back on those moments and smile.  Even if they span beyond your reach of memory.