The Pictures of Our Life

I was scrolling through my weekend pictures tonight, adding to my "Summer '09" photo file. Usually, the whole cropping, resizing, editing of the photos process is a task that I don't look forward to. I get so caught up in the work, that I rarely even look at the photos. Why is that? The reason I drag my camera along, forcing my family and friends to pose for pictures that they don't even want to be in, is to capture those Kodak moments and save them forever on a computer disk, in a box, tucked away in a cabinet. Seriously though, I am the fellow traveler that everyone eventually becomes quite annoyed with as I love to take pictures, and I love to be in pictures. If you are one of the chosen few who have actually been fortunate to have been on a vacation with me, or even just out for the night with me, you know that I am the first one to whip out the camera. I am also the tourist posing in my own pictures as I pull the nearest person to me in tight for my "self-taken" photo shots. It's amazing how many of these have turned out to be some of my best pictures.

Tonight though, I actually took the time to look at the pictures- not just from this past weekend, but from the beginning of the summer until now. The details of each event, complete with the feeling of belonging and friendship, grew stronger in my mind with each picture. I know that when I am having a bad day, or when I am feeling overwhelmed with whatever happens to be the stress of the moment, it is easy to forget those photos. Why do we let ourselves be consumed with the negative? I can't remember the last time that I took a picture of my kids arguing, or me with a headache, or any of the other multitude of sad, mad, bad events that are happening in our lives. If we don't want to pull these events out of our picture file on our computer, then why do we want to pull them out of our memory bank and relive them?

I look at my summer pictures and I want to remember my daughter hugging a new friend at the Canada Day concert. I want to remember the feeling of the sun on my skin lying on the dock at the cottage. I want to remember the pride of my son as he succeeded in water skiing on one ski. I want to remember the feeling of family as we gathered for a barbeque in my parent's backyard on a hot summer Sunday. I want to remember how the beauty of Tremblant took my breath away.

As cliche as it may sound, its time to stop and smell the roses. Or in this case, its time to really look at your pictures. It's time to revisit the moments in your life that make it all worthwhile.