Pictures
Pictures are strange. Sometimes you never realize how much you miss something, how much you've forgotten or how much you never knew until you look at a picture.
I'm house sitting for my mom this weekend. She' going to New Orleans with her boyfriend for an unknown reason. Restlessness I suppose.
I had just reached a point where I was supremely bored. Nighttime TV sucks. My DS was charging and I had washed all the dishes available, so I decided that I was going to do my mom's laundry.
Call it an early Happy Mother's Day present.
When I went into her laundry room I got distracted by an old photo album. Just family pictures and the like.
While I flipped through the pictures I kept getting sadder and sadder. So much of my life that I will never get to remember because I was too young, so much that I had forgotten and so many things that I miss.
I found a picture of my brother, he couldn't have been more than eight, and he was hanging some Christmas ornaments. Ordinary picture right?
Not anymore, not for me. You see about a year ago my mothers boyfriend forgot to pay the bill on a storage unit they were using. Everything inside of it got auctioned off. Including those ornaments. Things that had been my Great Grandmothers. Pre-Depression era ornaments. I had known my entire life that when my mother past on I was going to inherit these ornaments. That's just the way it was done. They went from her grandmother, to her mother, to her and then they were going to me. But they were sold to who knows. Now I'll never get to tell my future children the history behind those. I know it seems silly but those ornaments gave me a sense of history of my family. I looked at some of them and thought about my Great Grandmother, who I never got to meet, and wondered if she would have liked me or if she would have been proud of meas her great grand daughter. Yes they were just objects, but they were precious to me, and now they're lost forever.
There were also things of mine in that same box. My first Christmas ornament, ornaments I had made in elementary school and other silly things I had made to decorate during Christmas. I remember... there was this brass angel. It had my name engraved on it and it had the date 1985, my very first Christmas. That piece of metal was a piece of my history and it's gone now.
I found a picture of one of my first Halloweens. I evidently dressed up as Super Girl. Until I had found that picture, I had completely forgotten about that.
I forgot about the first picture taken of me in the hospital. The nurses had used scotch tape to tape a little yellow bow to my head.
I wanted to bawl so badly when I found the Christmas pictures. It's not just the ornaments. I haven't had a proper Christmas, so to speak, in years. My brother is gone, damn near excommunicated from the family. My parents divorced when I was ten or eleven. The only real reason I know it's Christmas anymore is because I have winter break from university.
What ever happened to my family Christmas? What happened to writing letters to Santa, even though I knew it was just my parents? What happened to the magic? The joy?
I hate holidays anymore. I don't even dress up for Halloween anymore. When did I lose that innocent joy in simple things like getting to stay up late on Halloween since my mom didn't want to bother trying to get me to sleep so hyped up on sugar...
Why do people have to lose that light in themselves? What does growing up do to rob us of our innocence? Our hope?
Pictures are strange like that I guess. They remind you of all the things that you've lost. The things that you'll never get back.
I'm house sitting for my mom this weekend. She' going to New Orleans with her boyfriend for an unknown reason. Restlessness I suppose.
I had just reached a point where I was supremely bored. Nighttime TV sucks. My DS was charging and I had washed all the dishes available, so I decided that I was going to do my mom's laundry.
Call it an early Happy Mother's Day present.
When I went into her laundry room I got distracted by an old photo album. Just family pictures and the like.
While I flipped through the pictures I kept getting sadder and sadder. So much of my life that I will never get to remember because I was too young, so much that I had forgotten and so many things that I miss.
I found a picture of my brother, he couldn't have been more than eight, and he was hanging some Christmas ornaments. Ordinary picture right?
Not anymore, not for me. You see about a year ago my mothers boyfriend forgot to pay the bill on a storage unit they were using. Everything inside of it got auctioned off. Including those ornaments. Things that had been my Great Grandmothers. Pre-Depression era ornaments. I had known my entire life that when my mother past on I was going to inherit these ornaments. That's just the way it was done. They went from her grandmother, to her mother, to her and then they were going to me. But they were sold to who knows. Now I'll never get to tell my future children the history behind those. I know it seems silly but those ornaments gave me a sense of history of my family. I looked at some of them and thought about my Great Grandmother, who I never got to meet, and wondered if she would have liked me or if she would have been proud of meas her great grand daughter. Yes they were just objects, but they were precious to me, and now they're lost forever.
There were also things of mine in that same box. My first Christmas ornament, ornaments I had made in elementary school and other silly things I had made to decorate during Christmas. I remember... there was this brass angel. It had my name engraved on it and it had the date 1985, my very first Christmas. That piece of metal was a piece of my history and it's gone now.
I found a picture of one of my first Halloweens. I evidently dressed up as Super Girl. Until I had found that picture, I had completely forgotten about that.
I forgot about the first picture taken of me in the hospital. The nurses had used scotch tape to tape a little yellow bow to my head.
I wanted to bawl so badly when I found the Christmas pictures. It's not just the ornaments. I haven't had a proper Christmas, so to speak, in years. My brother is gone, damn near excommunicated from the family. My parents divorced when I was ten or eleven. The only real reason I know it's Christmas anymore is because I have winter break from university.
What ever happened to my family Christmas? What happened to writing letters to Santa, even though I knew it was just my parents? What happened to the magic? The joy?
I hate holidays anymore. I don't even dress up for Halloween anymore. When did I lose that innocent joy in simple things like getting to stay up late on Halloween since my mom didn't want to bother trying to get me to sleep so hyped up on sugar...
Why do people have to lose that light in themselves? What does growing up do to rob us of our innocence? Our hope?
Pictures are strange like that I guess. They remind you of all the things that you've lost. The things that you'll never get back.