I love the pictures from when I was little; the old ones, taken with film cameras. Sometimes I can’t believe that part of my life has passed so quickly; most times I don’t even consciously acknowledge that the small person in those pictures was, and is, still me. I find pictures to be one of the most valuable things, especially for the times that we don’t remember. We don’t know anything about our past family members, or people that we’ve never met (in a visual sense) without photos. I’ve always been so fascinated with the decades that have occurred before I was born that I’ve only seen in pictures; it’s incredible, the notion that people have lived their lives in full, vivid color, just as I’m living mine, but that all that I can see of their lives is in black and white, toned down, blurred, so that when they look at the photos, only the people who lived in those moments really know what it was like.
I've been back to college for one week now; back to the same routine that I had before I left for break. I have one class that's in the same room, at the same time as last semester; the first day that I sat down, I felt a feeling of continuation, like I had never left. I went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of flowers, mostly greens and a couple of little white ones; I went back to my memaw's house to get the houseplants that I'd left in december. This past week has been cold with a biting wind, full of days when I've wanted to wear something nice but have ended up wearing my softest jacket and tennis shoes.
I've slowly been collecting things for around my apartment, and I've concluded that by the time that I graduate, I will have enough to fill up a small house. I told Agustin that if I get a polaroid for my birthday, that I'll make an entire album with pictures of us, so we can remember when we're older.
People my age don't like to think about the future much, I've concluded. I think about it all of the time.
- ryan
