Old Photos

I spent the afternoon going through a bunch of old slides and negatives I had scanned back in 2004 and forgotten about. Most of them were from my High School and college days. Contemplating all these photos and the memories they were bringing up as I was went through them, edited them, and uploaded them to Flickr led to a revelation for me on the nature of memory.

Most of the photos were of church youth group friends (I loved church more than High School) and close college friends, but I found some pictures that other people had sent me of friends and myself from back then. Those were doubly strange as the perspective was totally in the 3rd person, I hadn't taken or seen them before. I at least had existing memories of the pictures I had taken.

The overall affect was a strange mix of nostalgia, joy, and loss. I found myself wishing I could exist at all points in my life at once so that I could go back and forth from moment to moment and enjoy them over again. And at that thought I realized that's what memories allow and that's why I like them so much: they allow me to time travel, and it turns out time travel is both heartbreaking and joyful. It may also explain why I'm unwilling to throw anything away.

Also, just having to take a tour of my hair styles through the course of the last 3 decade was pretty painfully funny. If you're ever having a bad hair day, just take a gander at some of my High School era haircuts on Flickr. I think I actually used a helmet to cut my own hair in one of them.