Picture Day

I kind of feel like the people who have yet to bring breakfast or present the log.  Every morning, I wonder, Will people like my prompt?  Will they share?  This is the challenge of week 3, trying to come up with topics that you guys will want to write about but that Donna, Lindsi, and I haven't tapped out.  But I am up for the challenge.  I will redeem myself with this prompt!  People will write and share!  Or else!  Grrrr.  

Picture day has never been a successful endeavor for me.  When I was a little girl, I always managed to find scissors right before picture day.  Apparently, I wanted to be a hairdresser, and I would give myself a little trim.  I might have been a cute kid if 1) I hadn't insisted on cutting my own hair and  2) my mother didn't have to "fix" my mistakes.  If she managed to hide the scissors (she eventually grew wise and would hide them from me as picture day approached), my mother would attempt to do my hair.  There are things that my mom is good at.  Curling hair, putting it in pigtails, and/or placing barrettes in it- not so much.  As if the hair wasn't bad enough, my fashion sense was serious lacking and, God bless my mother, she let me wear whatever I wanted although with my personality as a child, I'm not sure that she really had a choice.  You want to wear brown knee high boots with your pink pleated Easter dress?  Okay.  A rainbow dress with a ruffle collar embellished with gold buttons?  You go, girl.  When I was prescribed glasses so thick they resembled the bottom of Coke bottles-think Sophia from The Golden Girls- my geekdom was secured.  And thanks to picture day, preserved for all posterity. 

Thinking back, I have to wonder how could my mom and dad let my wear granny glasses?  Did they really think I lost them all of those times?  No wonder my eyesight is so poor.  Speaking of eyesight, I have a lazy eye that they tried to correct by having me wear a patch.  (Now everyone is going to start looking for the lazy one.)  That would have made a great picture.     

As I got older, the pictures got worse although my hair was infinitely longer albeit teased to high heavens.  (Hey, it was the 80s.)  I always seemed to have the same pose: head tilted somewhat to the side with my eyes cutting across which revealed little of the whites of my eyes.  My parents could not afford braces for me, so two teeth on my left side overlapped slightly.  This was something that made me very self-conscious, especially when my best friend got braces.  

I financed my own braces when I was 16 and got them off when I was a freshman in college.  In that two year time span, there are very few pictures of me with braces.  Once I got them off, I was forced with the realization that I would have to wear retainers for the rest of my life.  I remember, when I was little, being fascinated with retainers.  But now that I had to wear them, the thrill is gone.  Ironically, I seem to only wear them when picture day approaches.  

As I have gotten older, I have realized that there are gaps in my life because I did not take pictures.  As a cheer coach, I was surrounded by girls who documented every moment of their life, and I always thought that was so silly.  Looking back, now I think they were pretty wise.  I wish that I had done a better job of that, for better or worse.  I think that sometimes we only want to take pictures of ourselves when we look our best.  But the reality is, we should take pictures along the way as well, or those moments will have passed us by.  

I have ton of pictures of places I've been, but I'm in very few of them.  One of my resolutions when I go to NY in 12 days is to take pictures of NY with me in them.  Who cares if I'm 15 pounds heavier than I was last year.  I'll be in NY!