October blog project - Day 10
Day 10: a photo taken over 10 years ago of you and how it makes you feel seeing it now.
This space intentionally left blank.
It's not that I'm not participating today, I just don't have anywhere that I can find an old picture of me. There was one from high school that someone had put up on facebook and tagged me in, but it doesn't seem to be there now. Spent all day with a photo for today in the back of my mind. I got nothing.
So I guess it makes me feel sad that I don't have any pictures to look back on. It makes me sad that I feel so bad about myself, and have for so long that I run from the business end of cameras like I'm a witch and someone's pointing a hose nozzle at me. It makes me sad that when I look at any pictures of me, all I can see are a collection of all the flaws screaming out at me, and that I hate every picture of me, ever. EVER. And it makes me sad that I don't have pictures of a happy, carefree, innocent youth. Neither the pictures nor that much innocence exist.
10 years ago, life was hard too. Life is hard now in entirely different ways. One of the reasons I avoided my 10 year reunion stuff at high school (besides not wanting to fork out for airfare so shortly after the expensive venture that medical bills and having a very sick child, and then very dead child is) was that I didn't want to go back, 2 months after my son had died, and see the people from my class who had just had kids. It was a small class, and an even smaller reunion. One girl had a baby 4 days before Caleb was born. Another, one of my closest friends had her second the same month Caleb died. I couldn't go back and look them in the eye. I couldn't go back and not cry uncontrollably. I didn't want to be that perpetually broken person anymore.
In high school, I was the poor kid at the private school. I was the kid from the broken family with the estranged sister and screaming parents, the one who wasn't allowed to go do all the things the other kids did, with the unsure future who wasn't going off to awesome colleges. I was the broken one with bills before I even had a job.
That first fall after graduating there was an annual alumni event. I went. I have a foggy memory of us all having run off to a fast food place, and a friend casually dropping a hand on my shoulder, and being shocked at how much tension I was carrying in my neck and shoulders. I wasn't even aware until he pointed it out. In just a few months I was already bearing the weight of my broken reality. My friends had been worried about finals; I had been worried about paying the rent. Finding time to go to school around my work schedule. Finding a way to afford community college.
The last time I had seen any gathering of high school friends was at a wedding. Everyone had just graduated, many had jobs and were at a high point of their lives. I had already dropped out of college more than once. I had been very sick and on disability, with a weird relationship in the process of failing. I was an explosion of stress and about to be unemployed.
I was still the broken one.
I didn't want to go back and be the broken one again. The one with the dead baby.
Whatever other excuses I may have made from time to time about not going, that is the real reason.
I am the broken one, but I don't feel that broken. I haven't gone through the past 10 years being perpetually miserable. I have had good times. I have done well for myself, especially considering the circumstances. I may not have done anything prestigious, or graduated from anywhere, but I made it through everything life threw at me, and I'm still here. Some days, I'm a lot more down than others. But I'm still going. I had a good job, I met a good husband. I have a nice house in a pretty place. And a dead baby.
But I'm still here.
And despite my joking, I'm not that broken. I don't see myself that way.
That didn't fit with me in my head, my image of myself, the image of who I wanted to be, and how I wanted to overcome my loss, to go back and be the broken, unsuccessful, failing object of pity, again. How I see myself in my mind is not the image I see in the photo. How I feel is not how others see me. I have become so much more than the scared person 10 years ago, who could not see the light at the end of the tunnel, but who was also without the comprehension of how many more challenging, heartbreaking, and terrible things life can throw at a person. I didn't know my own strength. I could try to look back at an old photo and lament a better time. But it wasn't better.
So that is how I feel about the imaginary picture from 10+ years ago.
So I guess it makes me feel sad that I don't have any pictures to look back on. It makes me sad that I feel so bad about myself, and have for so long that I run from the business end of cameras like I'm a witch and someone's pointing a hose nozzle at me. It makes me sad that when I look at any pictures of me, all I can see are a collection of all the flaws screaming out at me, and that I hate every picture of me, ever. EVER. And it makes me sad that I don't have pictures of a happy, carefree, innocent youth. Neither the pictures nor that much innocence exist.
10 years ago, life was hard too. Life is hard now in entirely different ways. One of the reasons I avoided my 10 year reunion stuff at high school (besides not wanting to fork out for airfare so shortly after the expensive venture that medical bills and having a very sick child, and then very dead child is) was that I didn't want to go back, 2 months after my son had died, and see the people from my class who had just had kids. It was a small class, and an even smaller reunion. One girl had a baby 4 days before Caleb was born. Another, one of my closest friends had her second the same month Caleb died. I couldn't go back and look them in the eye. I couldn't go back and not cry uncontrollably. I didn't want to be that perpetually broken person anymore.
In high school, I was the poor kid at the private school. I was the kid from the broken family with the estranged sister and screaming parents, the one who wasn't allowed to go do all the things the other kids did, with the unsure future who wasn't going off to awesome colleges. I was the broken one with bills before I even had a job.
That first fall after graduating there was an annual alumni event. I went. I have a foggy memory of us all having run off to a fast food place, and a friend casually dropping a hand on my shoulder, and being shocked at how much tension I was carrying in my neck and shoulders. I wasn't even aware until he pointed it out. In just a few months I was already bearing the weight of my broken reality. My friends had been worried about finals; I had been worried about paying the rent. Finding time to go to school around my work schedule. Finding a way to afford community college.
The last time I had seen any gathering of high school friends was at a wedding. Everyone had just graduated, many had jobs and were at a high point of their lives. I had already dropped out of college more than once. I had been very sick and on disability, with a weird relationship in the process of failing. I was an explosion of stress and about to be unemployed.
I was still the broken one.
I didn't want to go back and be the broken one again. The one with the dead baby.
Whatever other excuses I may have made from time to time about not going, that is the real reason.
I am the broken one, but I don't feel that broken. I haven't gone through the past 10 years being perpetually miserable. I have had good times. I have done well for myself, especially considering the circumstances. I may not have done anything prestigious, or graduated from anywhere, but I made it through everything life threw at me, and I'm still here. Some days, I'm a lot more down than others. But I'm still going. I had a good job, I met a good husband. I have a nice house in a pretty place. And a dead baby.
But I'm still here.
And despite my joking, I'm not that broken. I don't see myself that way.
That didn't fit with me in my head, my image of myself, the image of who I wanted to be, and how I wanted to overcome my loss, to go back and be the broken, unsuccessful, failing object of pity, again. How I see myself in my mind is not the image I see in the photo. How I feel is not how others see me. I have become so much more than the scared person 10 years ago, who could not see the light at the end of the tunnel, but who was also without the comprehension of how many more challenging, heartbreaking, and terrible things life can throw at a person. I didn't know my own strength. I could try to look back at an old photo and lament a better time. But it wasn't better.
So that is how I feel about the imaginary picture from 10+ years ago.
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