I usually show my kids my own 8th grade school picture as a cautionary tale -- I am wearing SWEATPANTS for one, for two, my henley shirt and my sweatpants are in matching pastels to the LASER background (oh 1989, you space age), I have a terrible short haircut (Dorothy Hamill I was not), and I'm smiling with my mouth closed to hide my braces.
I couldn't find it.
What I did find, however, was an envelope of old pictures of myself that my mom gave me while doing a purge at her house -- like REALLY old pictures, some of which I'd never seen before.
Going through them in detail was really neat, but it was also really sad.
No one is going to have those curls or gray-blue eyes passed down to them.
And who am I going to give these to when I clean out my house in my 60s? Who will care about my childhood photos, little snapshots of the late 1970s and early 1980s? It took something entertaining and gave it a decidedly morbid, morose tinge.
I'd like to share a few with you, so that they don't eventually end up disconnected to my own life, so that I can feel like they can have a little life of their own right now, since (hopefully much) later they may end up in a box that no one cares to have.
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| Me and my Popie, many moons ago. You might think I'm wearing legwarmers a little early for my time, but... |
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| Those aren't legwarmers. I'm happy anyway, but do you see something odd about the stance of my legs? |
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| Yeah, that's a double cast, because the hurdles came early. I had congenital hip dislocation that wasn't detected until months later (the doctors scornfully told my young mom "all babies cry" as I kicked one leg and howled, but there was a reason!). I'm sure that was tons of fun for diaper changes. I'd never seen these photos until I was bequeathed the envelope. |
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| I love this photo -- look at that HAIR! This was two months before my sister was born. And the cast is gone! |
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| There's no notes or anything on these, but I'm thinking this is shortly after my sister was born, because of the crib. That truck thing is crazy. |
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| This is probably my favorite. Love the hair, love the pensive look, love the bellbottoms, love the ugly plaid couch that I totally remember. This one made me so happy and also so, so sad. |
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| I actually used this one today for a question flood with my students. What is going on in this picture? Am I lost? Is there a polar bear to my right? I think I'm maybe 5 or 6 here, but again no notes so I'm not sure. Strange sort of Little Girl Lost shot, this one. |
Thanks for sharing in my old photographs and keeping them alive somehow; it makes me feel a little less sorry for myself.
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Aw what a cutie. Those are truly gorgeous curls! Everybody needs a history of some sort, so I'm glad you have these photos, although it's bittersweet. Maybe you can make a genealogy or family tree and add them in somehow?
ReplyDeleteThank you! I remember wishing I had less hair and hoping for some hair loss later. Um, that can stop now! :) The geneaology idea is a good one, I'll have to look into that!
DeleteAnd I hate that double chin shot they make you do for school photos! I swear those photos age me by ten years, and make me look so......teacher-y.
ReplyDeleteOMG yes. Definitely. I haven't seen the atrocity that is probably this year's yet. Definitely ugh.
DeleteThose curls!!!! I love these pictures! I'm so glad you put these photos here. And really... school picture day. Ugh. My biggest complaint was that they never seemed to give you a natural pose, and I always looked so stiff.
ReplyDeleteAlways stiff! And weird backgrounds! I miss retouching though. :) I'm glad you enjoyed the photos -- it's fun to share them.
DeleteOMG, I love those photos. Especially your gorgeous hair! Thanks so much for sharing.
ReplyDeleteAnd you know, of course, that many of us relate to your emotions about them. Hugs.
Thank you! I'm sure that was a pain to brush, such a lot of hair, but it sure was pretty. Somehow I seem to have less of it now... :( And thanks for the commiseration. These little things (not so little) sneak up on me.
DeleteI loved all the pictures. Your gorgeous hair.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to your emotions and this is a thought that has never crossed my mind. Reading your post, I thought about my pictures, my stuff that I will not share with anyone. They will die with me. So, I get that and yes, the thought is a bit sad and overwhelming. Nonetheless, pictures are memories and of times we cannot bring back.
Thank you -- my hair sure was something! Maybe we can really, really enjoy our pictures now and hope that maybe someone else will find them interesting in the future.
DeleteAw you were adorable as a child! The hip dislocation sounded awful though, silly doctors as usual not listening to the patient!
ReplyDeleteThank you! Seriously. Way to disregard the patient and/or patient's mom. Grrrrr.
DeleteYou crack me up. About your mom's fridge, about the polar bear. And as someone who was sick as a little kid, I feel for you in those casts. What an adorable person you've always been!
ReplyDeleteAwww, thank you! I'm sorry you had a challenging childhood, physically, too. And HA! I'm glad you got the humor in an otherwise woe-is-me post. :)
DeleteThese are gorgeous! Thank you for sharing them and taking us down memory lane with you.
ReplyDeleteAnd the double chin. Seriously, photographers should be forced to sit through a millon double-chin shots of their own (fully on display too) to cure them of this.
Thank you! It was so fun to find these photos, and better to share them. YES! Let's photograph THEM the way they photograph US! Perfect revenge scheme. :)
DeleteYou were soooo cute! Which I should've expected, since you still are! <3
ReplyDeleteWhy thank you! I don't know, I don't think I could get away with those bellbottoms or overalls now... :)
DeleteNow. Then. Cute. So weird I shared a "picture day" pic of my daughter today.
ReplyDeleteYou can create a "history of you" stories and photos that will be found by the next owner of your house or . .
Thank you for sharing you with us.
Great minds! And thank you. I like the "history of you" idea a lot! Thanks for sharing in my memories.
Delete:-)
DeleteWow, thanks for sharing these! Those curls - just amazing and beautiful. It's so interesting hearing these early stories and seeing the photos.
ReplyDeleteI smiled when you mentioned the "laser" background of the school photo. My most infamous school photo (4th grade) has a laser sort of background with me in a pastel floral floofy sort of dress (that totally clashed with the background) and my hair frizzed out to an enormous volume. School photos are their own genre for sure!
Thank you so much! Oh, yes. Laser ridiculousness. I love those "awkward photos" collections, and I feel like most are those school photos or JC Penny's family studio shots with the floating heads and whatnot. Your photo sounds AMAZING!
DeleteSpeaking as the Mom with the fridge gallery, I have literally thousands of photos of you taken over many years. There are boxes, bags,, and drawers full of them. Some I developed myself in a friend's dark room, others were taken on Polaroid film. One thing thing shines through all of them: you were, and are, a beautiful person. ❤️ Mom
ReplyDeleteAwww, thanks, Mom! That is a lovely note. <3
DeleteOh, your poor legs!
ReplyDeleteI'm a child of the 70s/80s so I missed out on the laser background. However, given how adorable you are in these shots, I have to imagine even the 90s and a DH haircut (am I the only girl in existence who didn't have one?) couldn't take away from your inherent beauty.
And I just noticed your mom's comment - so much ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ for it!
I'm so grateful that my legs work (for the most part) now! The horrid cast was totally worth it. Oh man, no laser for you? That's a bummer. Um, my hair turned into a sort of Buckingham Palace guard hat with that haircut, but I thank you for the compliment. And yeah, my mom's comment is amazing. :)
DeleteYou were so cute! But boy a cast that young? Yikes.
ReplyDeleteAhhh henley shirts. I do miss them.
Thank you so much! And yeah, diaper changing must have been a real joy. Blech. Henley shirts were so comfy. I do see sort of henleys in catalogs, but not quite the same as the ones from the 80s.
DeleteWhat cute pics. Can definitely still see the little girl in your current photos: you honestly haven't changed that much!I used to think about who would get my photos, would they just be thrown into a skip and taken to the dump... it really bothered me for ages but recently I've been more sanguine about it: I'll be dead so I try not to care about it. I'm getting more unsentimental in my old age maybe. It comes and go in waves. I think it's a great idea to share them on here!
ReplyDeleteSomehow I missed this post! Tiny Jess is so damn adorable, I can't stand it!! Your hair is envious, for sure! I always wished for curly hair like that.
ReplyDeleteAnd Oh, school photos, I have so much disdain for them. What a sucky thing to have to go through every year, because I am not sure where school photographers learn to take pictures, but MAN do they all do the same stuff and do the photos always look so ridiculous. Just across the board. And yep, I definitely had my photo taken in middle school with that too-cool laser print background.
Adorable photos! Thank you for sharing them. Love the one of you sitting on the steps. So cute!
ReplyDeleteWhat to do with the photos is one of the sad parts of not having children... I have a TON of photos, not just the ones I've taken, but there are tons at my parents' house of me & my sister growing up, as well as a whole big Rubbermaid bin full of ones from my grandmother's house that date back to the late 1800s, My sister doesn't have any children either. I figure the best thing is to scan & identify as many as we can and offer them up/share them with dh's & my nephews and any cousins who might be interested/appreciate them. But there are a lot that will probably fall through the cracks. :( You were a cute kid; thanks for sharing these with us! (And you're very brave to share your school photo with your students!!)
ReplyDelete