As I was driving into work today pondering my day my life and my huge "to do" list - the glare from the electronic billboard off 35W heading into downtown caught my eye. There was this HUGE picture of this guy who is wanted....he's some foreign dude who I'm sure did something terrible but his photo was hilarious...or sad really. He's standing there obviously staring at the camera but they seem to have snapped the picture just as he's blinking so he's got the oddest half eye closed pose I have ever seen. Poor dude, not only is he a wanted man, he's kinda comical. Now let's just say I bump into this dude on the street, there is no way I am going to recognize him because seriously.....who walks around half blinking? It got me thinking about the "snapshots" in our heads we create all the time. How many of them have our eyes half open? The ones we have created for ourselves can't all be pretty....right?
Maybe that's why I adore self portraits so much more....I have control....I know when I'm going to push the button so I can be ready. In life, we don't actually get that chance. We are at the mercy of whoever is on the other side of that so called camera. My therapist once told me I need to change the snapshots I've created in my head so I'm not constantly disappointed. It was a long involved conversation but the jist of it is that I tend to create this sort of photo album in my head of how things are suppose to be....how I think they should look and when the reality settles in and they don't match it just makes me really unhappy.
It's up to us to change those pictures. We have to learn to let the pictures be what they will be. Ahh, it will be what it will be..... I love pictures...they are snapshots of time that have captured a perfect moment. I like to surround myself with these happy moments because, well, because it makes me happy. As I have been packing up my old home I've come across some old pictures I forgot I had and some of them still make me really happy. I don't know if it's because over time I've made that moment in time be that one still picture but it makes me happy....so I accept that. I want to be happy. I want those moments in time to bring me joy.
I would hate to be at the end of my life and not have anything to look back on. Nothing to remind me of the journey I've taken or the places I've gone. One really cool picture I have is from one of my memorable family vacations. I must have been 12 or 14 and it's at Mount Rushmore with my brothers and sisters. Crazy Horse is in the background and it's just barely an outline. It's one of those square, old 70's kind of pictures that for some reason makes me smile. One summer we packed up the car and drove to South Dakota. My whole family....we camped and in my mind it was a freaking blast. We did all the touristy things one could do, maybe that's why it's stuck in my head, maybe that's why I feel I MUST go back there. Wall Drug, Flintstone Park, Mount Rushmore, some old western town.....all the touristy things along the way....oh and to buy those tacky souvenirs. That pine box that is now like $20! That smell, that brings me back to a different time.
Can we really relive the happy parts? Will they be the same? Will it create better more joyful memories or will it erase what our minds have created? Only one way to tell I guess!! I need to take a trip this summer....I need to go and explore...no plans, no goals, no anything but a joyful spirit to enjoy the time.
Do you plan that or just go? Hmm, so many questions on this Tuesday morning.
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