There’s a picture of me in some photo album of my childhood where I’m standing on top of my dad’s briefcase.
It’s kind of a blurry picture from back in the day when you snapped a picture, but you didn’t know if it was any good until you got the film developed. I’m sure this picture would’ve been deleted if my parents had a digital camera all those years ago. Surely they would’ve snapped a sharper one if they could’ve seen it right away! But because one of them bothered to take the picture and then get it developed into a print, this blurred memory ended up in the family photo album with the caption, “So high!” written next to it in my mom’s swirly handwriting.
I guess that’s what I kept saying each time I climbed up onto my dad’s flat black briefcase and then jumped off of it in the middle of our living room. I can still see my mom’s pretty smile when she told me about the photo that captured that mundane event from a regular old day in the life of her youngest daughter when she was still a toddler. Even though I have no actual memories of jumping off of that briefcase, I do think about that picture often. It’s one of those incredibly random images that’s stayed with me because somehow…
It perfectly captures perspective when I recall that image with older eyes.
What was “so high” to me as a toddler seems like an insignificant height to me now — and, I can even chuckle to myself when I think about my mom or dad pulling out their Kodak Instamatic camera with the flashcube on top to archive that particular moment. Being blissfully unaware of how much higher things could actually be is partly what makes childhood so special and magical to me. There’s so much discovery and trial and error ahead of you when you’re a child, and so many things feel possible before your awareness expands…
So it’s good to take a picture of your baby girl before she knows how complicated the world will get when she’s older.
Right?
I was thinking about that picture today for some reason. There are some things going on these days that have added some extra pressures and stressors to the mix of things in my life. There’s nothing new happening, but I think I’m just tired of this one particular struggle. And today, I caught myself remembering how I used to think that grown-ups knew everything and that people who carried briefcases to work were always going to be good at their jobs, and, they always got so much done.
But it turns out, carrying a briefcase doesn’t make you important or even good at your job. And in many ways, adulthood can still be a lot like childhood where people still pretend more often than you’d ever guess! I know there are times when I feel like I’m just pretending, too, yet I suspect everyone can see right through my bluff, and so I usually end up just going back to being plain old me.
What in the world am I talking about, right?
Ugh. I don’t really know…
I guess I’m just thinking about how it seems like things always change on me in life, but…maybe they don’t. Maybe it’s me that changes, and me that keeps growing up… But things?
