Keep Taking Pictures...
I was 5 years old sitting next to my grandmother eating breakfast. After I had scarfed down my scrambled egg and potato plate, I would sit next to her, and would start walking my fingers towards her saggy, wrinkled arm skin or mama "flab". I would test the waters to see if it bothered her, but it didn't. I would then start jiggling her skin in my fingers. Sounds gross, but to me it was extremely comforting. This was my grandmothers arm; she was my friend, my second mom, and took great care of me. I loved her, and I would spend many days talking to her.
I was 5 years old sitting next to my grandmother eating breakfast. After I had scarfed down my scrambled egg and potato plate, I would sit next to her, and would start walking my fingers towards her saggy, wrinkled arm skin or mama "flab". I would test the waters to see if it bothered her, but it didn't. I would then start jiggling her skin in my fingers. Sounds gross, but to me it was extremely comforting. This was my grandmothers arm; she was my friend, my second mom, and took great care of me. I loved her, and I would spend many days talking to her.
I loved playing in our house patio while she swept the floor
of tree leaves.
"What did you use to play when you were little
grandma?", I would ask. She always said the same stuff: "I had not
time to play! I just had to do my chores!" I would giggle, and she would
smile. This was her way of telling me it was time to do my chores. I would
continue asking her things about her childhood, and then one day she said:
"I used to look just like you. Skinny and short." "You did????!!!!" I would say
surprised. You see, I thought my grandmother was always that age. In my 5 year
old mind, we all had roles, and my role was to play the kid and she was the
squishy grandma. But then she said "The way I see you, I once looked, the
way you see me, you will one day look." That stuck with me. As I got older
I would rummage through her pictures, and I never found a picture of her as a
little girl, or a teenager, or a young mom. Why? I kept asking her this for
many years, and then she said: "Why did I need a picture of myself? I
wasn't very pretty, nothing special to look at".
Really?!?! She was VERY special to look at! And she sure was pretty! Now the only pictures of her that I have are the ones that family
took of her, and she looked the way I remembered.
Well, guess what? My grandmother was right. I was going to
grow up one day. Now I'm 30 years old with two kids. A cute 10 year-old boy
& and a mini-me 7 year-old girl. I only have a handful of kid pictures of
me because of my own insecurities - I scratched my face off of most of them one
day after school because I got picked on for having a big nose. Sadly, my kids don't get to see me the way I
looked when I was their age.
Perhaps to make up for my lack of childhood pictures, I
started to take selfies when I joined Instagram - the 21st century self
portrait. This got me a lot of eye rolls from friends and family.
When getting together with friends and family I got lots of
phrases like this thrown at me: "Here comes the selfie queen!" or
"But first, let me take a selfie!" followed by a cheesy smile.
Yeah, yeah. So, I take the occasional selfie? So what! I
defended myself. Yet, I felt their lighthearted judgment on me - which is fine
- but I want to explain why I think the occasional selfie can actually be good
for your soul.
Why? Because you usually take a picture at an important time
of you life to remember that moment, or feeling.
I have taken self portraits, AKA "selfies", at
times when collapsing down on the couch
after a long day of dropping the kids off at school, coming home to work, then
picking up groceries, passing through the bank, preparing a meal, getting the
kids, and finally coming back home and finding that my mascara is still on, and
my face - although tired - looks good enough for a picture.
This is me then.
This is me when I was running around taking kids to school,
when I was surviving the day, when I was still young, and when I still had
little ones at home to help create more forehead wrinkles.
This is me, at a happy time, when I was learning that being
a parent is hard work. Like, really hard. And that no matter what I did, and
how hard I tried, I would still feel like I didn't do enough. A time I cared
about my family so much that I gave my whole entire self to them. Including my dog.
This is me at different points in life, when I got bangs that were too short, and was old enough not to care or worry too much because I had grown up enough to realize that they will grow back.
This is me with puffy eyes, with worry on my face, with
anxiety over bills that looked like we couldn't pay that month.
This is me, the mom who likes herself, who wants evidence that I too was once young, and I too grew older, and earned every gray hair, wrinkle and sunspot on my skin. This is me, the daughter, the mom, and the future grandmother. Yes, the one that will have evidence to show her grandchildren that she was once their age, and that she was special to look at, and she was pretty enough for a picture.
This is me.....then. And my selfie tells, the story.
Jazmin
Jazmin
