but just pieces
August 2, 2009
August 1, 2009 12:59 am
I’m having a lot of secret self-pity parties lately. I’m just me and I’m tired of me, being me, everything associated with me. I keep having dreams about peeling the top layer of my skin off and being someone else underneath. Every time I look in the mirror I see my mom. So much more than usual, lately. And pieces of my dad, but just pieces; his nose, fingers, toes, perpetually unable to decide if that’s because I look more like my mom or because I’ve forgotten what he looks like. Not forgotten in pictures, not two-dimensionally, but in front of me, standing beside me. My mom’s getting old, her body’s so much older than she is. It’s an outward, very public, record of the life she’s lead, the things she’s been through. It makes me so sad. And I think that’s why I’m consumed with sadness, loss, hopelessness, fear – when I see her in me in the mirror. I love her and I remember her so being so beautiful but I don’t want reminders of her life, her decisions, choices, the path she chose.
I need to create to survive. Life has the unbelievable ability to suck itself from you, drain you, crush you, numb you. Sometimes it's hard to remember the pretty things, because it's all moving too fast too much of the time. I stop, I photograph, I write, I remember. Sometimes this prevents me from actually living in the moment and encourages my permanent residency in the past - but it's the only way I've found to capture, to remember, to make it all worthwhile.