When these photos were taken it was a different time. Before shelter in place, before so many things I took for granted crumbled around me leaving room for something new even if I don’t know what that is yet. It has been hard for me to write this statement. I have found a million excuses to turn away from myself and these photos of me. To declare them unimportant in light of a constant barrage of tasks and obstacles. Just as I too frequently declare myself, my body, as unimportant. A means to an end. A tool to propel myself from experience to experience. This skin has felt so much pain and so much love. Seeing these photos makes me uncomfortable because honestly I feel more beautiful in my mind than I feel when I see these images of myself. It is an odd feeling to not recognize what you look like naked. To be jarred awake by an image of me as a 35 year old when my mental image of myself is still stuck in my 20’s, before I created two lives with my body and before age started to show its hand. To know there is so much coming, so much this body will experience, that I cannot imagine right now. Good and bad, I can’t wait to experience it all.
