Freezing Time

On picture day, I blew Carmen's hair straight so she'd look nice. Her hair is usually all over the place -- it is fine and tends to get straggly by the end of the day. Ordinarily I don't care but I figured she may as well take a good shot. When she left the house her hair was sleek and she looked fantastic.

When she got home she informed me that the grade 4s were the last to have their pictures taken. Last thing in the day. I immediately imagined what she had had done during gym class and then outside at recess and lunch hour -- playing tag in the grass, chasing each other on the playground, dodgeball--and what she must have looked like when she finally sat down to say 'cheese'. I figured she was going to look like a hot mess. I mentally planned retakes and lamented that we wouldn't have her pictures by Christmas.

A month later she brought her package home and she looked great. Most importantly she looked like HER; a bit more messy than sleek perhaps but clearly happy and confident and so very pretty. Why had I stressed about this picture? Why did it even matter?

A while later I was flipping through photo albums looking for a picture of a friend and me when we were kids and I came across MY grade 4 picture. I'm sure I did my own hair that day and, as I was a tomboy, I was undoubtably wrestling with the guys or playing baseball before my shot was taken. It's not a beauty by any stretch.  My parents kept it in favour of retakes because it showed ME. It was the kid I was at that moment, a frozen piece of history. The picture shows the 9 year old me who didn't care what I looked like or that my pants were usually a bit short or that my teeth were too huge for my face (as were my ears) or that my hair was all over the place or that I had any reason at all to be self-conscious about it. Just like hers is the fourth grade Carmen frozen in time on picture day. (Though as you can see, her picture is exponentially better than mine -- she is more beautiful than I could ever have hoped to be but I doubt she could rock the red and white velour like I did!). 

Years in the future, when I look at this picture, I certainly won't remember what her hair looked like before she left the house. I'll look at this picture and remember the funny, spazzy, smart kid she was at 9, and how proud I was of her. And when she looks at this picture she'll probably just be thankful she wasn't saddled with a mugshot like her mom's.