Photo day
Remember in grade school when your mom would pick out one of your nicer, less crappy outfits to wear? You'd be called down to the ersatz photo studio manned by a polyester-suited man suffering through their own personal hell of photographing 10 year olds in all their squirmy glory. You'd be handed a cheap plastic comb which never did me much good as I have rather curly hair and combing it just encourages it to poof out like nobody's business. Does everyone have a few random wallet-sized portraits of themselves that have turned all reddish-orange from second grade? Three weeks later you'd be handed an envelope with a single shot repeated over and over and over. If you blinked in the middle of the shot? tough tittie said the kittie. That's how all of your relatives would see you on their mantels. Or, God forbid, in the family's christmas card sent out that year.
I had my picture taken for work yesterday by an actual professional photographer, instead of just a coworker as in the past. He was wonderful at putting me at ease and coaching poses that looked rather natural out of me. The harrowing part? Reviewing the digital results and realizing that I'm older. I am 40 after all. In my thirties my face certainly changed, but now? Now i'm looking middle-aged. or at least very tired. I feel like i have to redefine myself again. I realize i'm a mother to a two year old and that's more common these days. I'm a wife too. I've gotten the hang of being that too. I guess it's the "old" part. The no longer being valid thing. or something. I'm not really so morose about it or anything, just, well, a little bummed. Internally I think I'm better than i ever have been. But now my outter self is hitting the skids!
It's true, youth is wasted on the young!
I had my picture taken for work yesterday by an actual professional photographer, instead of just a coworker as in the past. He was wonderful at putting me at ease and coaching poses that looked rather natural out of me. The harrowing part? Reviewing the digital results and realizing that I'm older. I am 40 after all. In my thirties my face certainly changed, but now? Now i'm looking middle-aged. or at least very tired. I feel like i have to redefine myself again. I realize i'm a mother to a two year old and that's more common these days. I'm a wife too. I've gotten the hang of being that too. I guess it's the "old" part. The no longer being valid thing. or something. I'm not really so morose about it or anything, just, well, a little bummed. Internally I think I'm better than i ever have been. But now my outter self is hitting the skids!
It's true, youth is wasted on the young!
