memories, the good and the bad

I recently rediscovered a collection of pictures that i had not gone through in a very long time. I take many pictures (thank you digital cameras) and sometimes they are of odd things that I'd be embarrassed to admit to. Cliche goes that pictures are worth a thousand words but for me it's more like a thousand memories.
















I remember everything. Sometimes I remember too much (which makes forgiving hard...whoa what a tangent). anyway, i usually am told i have good memory for remembering minuscule details or obscure events. I can't necessarily agree with this blanket statement due to many not so insignificant moments that i cannot always easily recall. But I did surprise myself recently.

In particular, there was a batch of college pics that brought back a lot of forgotten moments. I stared at the pic and it's like I suddenly became a detective of my own past.

• I remembered when I got that haircut or that it's when I first started styling my hair differently and was still learning. What I thought about it. What inspired it. How some reacted to it. What I thought of the new attention.
  
  
• Something about the pic told me that I was still growing into my own skin. Body language, maybe.
  
  
• My eyebrows. They've undergone many transformations. I looked at the pic and remembered who had last plucked them and what a big deal it was that they so "thin" then. Though I look back on them now and they still looked too bushy, and in nearly every picture , they are always uneven.
  
  
• Weight fluctuations. I never notice weight changes on others unless it's drastic. I'm an even worse gauge to myself. It is never until time passes and a "before" and "after" pic exists that I can bring myself to agree with other's comments on my +/- 8 pounds. Back then clothing losing their fit could've meant that I was in college doing my own laundry.
  
  
• The price of every article I had on, possibly where it was purchased and whether or not I found it on sale. Money was tight then and every cent counted a lot so every purchases was meaningful. I remember a friend reminding me of my budget, which I had disclosed to her, for one particular semester long after I had forgotten about it. I had twenty bucks a month to spend on clothing.
  
  
• I looked for clues in the things that were photographed beside me. The posters I had on the wall, what had become of them? Some of the random desk supplies that I still own. The other miscellaneous items that appeared in the photograph, some were lost in my numerous moves, or I had outgrown them and given them away.

Aside from the obvious visuals of the photograph, there were certain images that reminded me of happy times and not so happy times. It's in the smile, the setting, the posture. I also look at some pictures and can see my naiveness of that time and it makes me cringe. Ahh, growth.