Our Old Photographs

Today to dodge writing a lab report, I spent too much time on facebook. In the process I looked at one of my friend's old pictures. It was then that I noticed something peculiar. It was an old picture of her, from high school in her jeep. No one had commented on it or even liked it yet of all the pictures of herself she had taken down, it remained. And I wondered what the picture meant to her and also what it meant to me and if we still hoped the same girl inside the photo was inside of her.

You see even though I have only known her for about six years, she has changed much more than anyone else I know in the time I've known her. To give you a better perspective on how ridiculous that is I should mention that I have had a group of friends since kindergarten and their personalities since then have changed a lot but not nearly as much as her personality.

And so I look at the girl in the picture with some of her shoulder length hair draped over half of her acne spotted face, with a look of confusion and uncertainty yet calm, with the body language of one who is already giving up and so keep their shoulders slumped. This is how I want to remember her, unsure yet calm in her light cotton jacket as grey as the world must seem to her.

Now she's not certain nor calm. She has taken a road of life that she isn't sure about but she's tired of not doing anything and so now her hair that draped over her face so freely has been confined in gel for her mohawk, her body has tattoos about authors such as Ayn Rand and she is quite positive that she is without a doubt most probably at least possibly bi if not completely a lesbian. But none of that would bother me if she was happy but she seems so far from that word. Sarcastic, bitter, and aggressive she has assured me that at least she has seen through the lies of religion and seen that living only for the moment is the way to live one's life. Again I should mention, I don't think I've ever seen her so miserable. But don't worry, she's traveling around the world now enjoying the sites. In fact, it seems like she's scared not to travel. As if her not recognizing where she is prevents her from realizing she doesn't even recognize who she is. And so she runs. She runs to any relationship, any drug, any drink, any philosophy, anything that makes her forget for just a little while that she has no idea who she is or what she's becoming.

But this is more than a casual interest in someone else and their life, isn't it? You're right, I was completely infatuated with the girl in the photograph. To me, she was beautiful. Then we didn't hang out for a while and a lot of changes happened to her. But I still wanted to be with her and possibly help her with anything to make her make better decisions and be happier in the long run. I wanted to visit the girl I'd once known and see if she still resided in any of the person I see nowadays. I think she is still in there, she's just as unsure as she always was and so doesn't know how to fix herself. But I'm not sure if I can help her...ugh, life sucks. Everyone has to choose things for themselves. So now that we are in different colleges I can't do anything more than facebook chat with her and pray that if my prayers mean anything to anyone, they help her.

I think we always see what we want to remember from photographs. We see past the picture and into the eyes of the person, we see eyes full of something different than what's in there now. Is it healthy to already have regrets before I'm even 30? Well if I must have them, I can at least strive to reduce any future regrets...I guess that's a constellation...I hate what I see in my old photographs.