Wednesday, July 23, 2014

When things are not as they seem

Are you familiar with Throwback Thursdays on FaceBook? It’s a silly meme that involves posting old photos of yourself on your timeline. I love it, I’m not ashamed to say, and I’ve had a blast seeing what others post as well as finding photos to post of my own.

A couple of weeks ago, a woman I knew in high school posted a photo of herself attending a very glamorous event, and she most definitely brought the glam. She wrote that you wouldn’t know it to look at the picture, but that had been one of the worst nights of her life. She was right – the picture didn’t show that at all.

Similarly, my photo tomorrow will be from the start of the darkest period of my life, I hope ever but most certainly so far. I knew things were bad, I suspected but hadn’t yet fully realized just how much worse things would get. And yet you can’t really tell from the picture.

I’m sure some of it is because it’s such a stylized, cliché of a photo. I mean really, a Glamour Shot? Totally ridiculous to be sure – and what’s hilarious is I remember well that the stylist was just stumped by what to do with my incredibly short hair.

I have some good feelings about the session itself, but not because it was a Glamour Shot. My dear friend Paula knew how bad things were and maybe she knew that things were going to get worse, I don’t know. But she persuaded me to go to the mall in Topeka KS and do the shoot. So for about an hour or so, I was distracted by all the hubbub and directions to “look here” or “tilt your head this way or that way” and of course the silly costume changes.

I hated those pictures for years, mostly because they were a visible anchor to the time when they were taken. But the other day I was looking for another photo to scan for Throwback Thursdays and found them. I realized things had changed and what I felt now was empathy for the old me, and sorrow for what she was going through and had yet to go through. And as dated and cliché-y as they are, I sort of liked the pictures. So here they are.





4 comments:

Jeanne said...

The look is fabulously glamorous!

lemming said...

Oh my goodness, the earrings... actually, I really like the second pose!

edj3 said...

I don't wear heavy earrings and I do remember that these earrings all hurt because they were so heavy.

Claudia said...

Wow. Just....wow!