On Being Committed (Blog #592)

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It’s 8:00 in the evening, and it’s been dark outside since 4:30. What the actual hell? I feel like it’s midnight. I’m SO TIRED. No kidding, I’m about to pass out hibernation style. Like for the entire winter.

Somebody wake me up when it’s March!

Earlier my parents, my aunt, and I went out for dinner at–get this–3:45 so we could get the senior citizen discount at Furr’s Super Buffet. It’s sexy, I know. Y’all, I “sort of” controlled myself with all the food options, but still managed to scarf down a salad, two full plates of mashed this and cheesy that, and a dessert. My insulin was like, “What do you think I am–a miracle worker?!”

Hum. Insulin. Maybe that’s why I’m so sleepy.

Anyway, this was honestly the highlight of my day. Meatloaf that’s been keep warm under a lightbulb.

Before we went out to eat, I worked more on sorting old photos, and I’m continually amazed that in many cases I can’t put my finger on what year something happened. Today I tried to organize photos of when our old swing dance group, The Big Bad Jittacats, performed on The Dr. Pepper Stage at the fairgrounds. Eventually, I gave up on about twenty-five percent of the photos, since we were out there SO MANY TIMES and everything just blends together like–I don’t know–a casserole does in your mouth.

Maybe from this point forward I should start wearing a different uniform each year. Then when I look back at photos I’ll know–Oh yes, 2018, the year of yellow spandex and red suspenders.

Or whatever.

Currently I’m blogging on my phone because my internet (my hotspot) drags ass during the afternoon and early evening hours. I assume because everyone else is on the network. Last night while I was writing at three in the morning, it wasn’t a problem. Unless you consider going to bed just before sunrise a problem, which I’m starting to. Anyway, so this is a compromise–phone blogging now in exchange for a decent night’s rest later.

Am I at five hundred words yet? That’s my goal for tonight. Then I can get ready for bed and not feel like I “have” to stay up forever.

Just before I passed out last night about 4:45, a friend from overseas messaged me online and said, “Are you awake?!” Then when I said yes because of the blog, they said, “I admire your commitment.” To which I said, “Most days I feel like I should BE committed.”

Like to an institution.

Along these lines, my therapist asked recently if I felt COMMITTED to the blog or OBLIGATED to the blog. After pausing to consider the difference between the two things, I said, “I’m committed.” This was apparently the right answer, since I got a Tootsie Roll when our session was over.

I’m not sure why I bring this up now, other than to say I think it’s a good thing to ponder if you’re thinking of taking on a big project, whether that’s a creative endeavor like writing a blog or a personal one like going to the gym or getting married. Because if you feel obligated to whatever it is, chances are it won’t last. Either that or you won’t (without becoming resentful). But if you feel committed to your idea/goal/person, well that’s a different matter. Not that it’s a guarantee of success, of course, but at least it’s a better starting point.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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For me, it's important to hang on to this idea that no matter how bad they are, your circumstances can turn around, to believe that if an elephant can show up in your life, it can also disappear, to believe that just as the universe full of big problems, it is also full of big answers.

"

A Thousand Wallet-Sized Photos (Blog #591)

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It’s two in the morning, and–I know I say this a lot, but–the day has gotten away from me. I slept in until one this afternoon, and even I thought, For crying out loud, Marcus Anderson Coker, wake up earlier. But for the last week I’ve been tired, tired, tired, like seriously dragging ass, and I haven’t been today. Rather, I woke up–how do I say this?–excited to be alive.

So maybe I just needed some serious Zs.

After an obviously late breakfast, I spent this afternoon digging through my old yearbooks–pre-kindergarten through college–because while going through old photos lately I’ve come across handfuls of unlabeled “wallets” and wanted to figure out what picture was taken when. This project took nearly three hours but definitely helped me organize both my photos and my brain. Oh yes–I had braces from sixth grade to eight grade, then I frosted my hair in high school, then I dyed it red in college, AND THEN I dyed it blue (also in college). The other thing this project did was remind me, sort of all at once, how frickin’ awkward it is to grow up or to generally be alive. I mean, the braces, the haircuts, the zits. Ugh. my senior portraits were airbrushed to hell. Not to mention the fashion.

Personally, I did the baggy shirt thing for WAY too long.

I guess about junior high, maybe a little sooner, is when the awkward thing really started for me. I found one photo taken between sixth and seventh grades from a back-to-school pool party in which I was the only guy wearing a t-shirt in the swimming pool because I didn’t like what puberty did to my nipples. I realize this level of criticism is normal. You hit puberty, and EVERYTHING changes–some things for the better, some things for the worse. At some point, you end up despising your own body. (If this wasn’t your experience with puberty, just wait until your metabolism slows down or your breasts start to sag.) But I never remember thinking ANYTHING was wrong before puberty. NOTHING was too big, too small, too anything. It just was. Now I think most things are–too something, that is. Like, I don’t care for my posture, and when I look back at my junior high photos I think, That’s when I started slouching. So not do I pick on the current me, I also pick on the former me.

And he’s not even here to defend himself.

Not that I want to go back to the age I was in elementary school when everything was all “ain’t life great,” but I would like to go back to that level of self-acceptance and self-kindness.

This evening after dinner I went to Fort Smith to help my aunt with her internet and do a couple odd jobs. Then I went to a friend’s house to help them with a phone/computer thing, and since phone/computer things always take MUCH longer than expected, ended up eating dinner again. “Have you eaten,” my friend said. “Well, yes,” I said, “but I’m ALWAYS hungry.” Anyway, this is where the bulk of my evening was spent, at my friend’s house, working and catching up. We laughed, laughed, laughed. This is so important, I think, since it’s really easy to stay at home, dig through your memories, get stuck in your head, and take both yourself and your life way too seriously.

So that’s my two cents for tonight–if you know someone who makes you laugh, ask them if you can come over. (Tell ’em you’ll fix their phone or computer.)

When I got home from my friend’s, it was nearly midnight, and I’d intended to start blogging right away. But then I decided to crop all the “photos of yearbook photos” I took while going through my annuals this afternoon, AND THEN I thought, Wouldn’t it be nice to have them all lined up neat and orderly, like in a collage? AND THAT turned into a nearly two-hour long project that involved not only learning how to use a new phone app, but also doing my damndest to not demand perfection of myself.

Maybe that photo should be a little bigger and slightly to the left.

This is apparently a lesson I’ve been trying to learn for a while, the not demanding perfection of myself thing. While looking through my college yearbooks (for three of four of which I was the editor), I noticed a “letter from the editor” in which I said, “You’ll find plenty of mistakes here. But like life, this is meant to be fun.”

This is meant to be fun, Marcus.

I don’t know, if I got to someone’s Instagram feed and find nothing but “perfect” photos, like every single frickin’ one is magazine-quality beautiful, I think, Bitch, please. Because that’s not real life; it’s not even close. Real life is awkward smiles, bad haircuts, and zits on your face. It’s crooked teeth, a stain on your (baggy) shirt, and posture that’s never quite “right.” It’s everything you could fit into a thousand wallet-sized photos. At the same time, it’s not that–because real life is REAL life. It’s something that’s lived, not something that’s captured with a camera. It’s whatever time you woke up today, whatever you did this afternoon, and the sound of two friends laughing. It’s whatever is happening right here, right now.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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You’re exactly where you need to be.

"

Calling It a Night (Blog #590)

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It’s 10:30 on a Saturday evening, and I’m at home with my parents. I’ve been here with them all day and was here with them all day yesterday too. I don’t mean to brag about my social life, these are just the facts. Earlier this evening I took a shower for the first time in–I don’t know–several days. I shaved and everything. Now I feel like a new man. A friend just sent me a text and–because we were talking about weddings–said, “Let me know when yours is. I bet it will be a great party.” And whereas my first instinct was to think, That’ll never happen (because I’m single AF), my second thought was, Hey, wait a damn minute. That could very well happen! It’s not like I’m dead yet.

I mean, people do get married every day. People just like me.

This afternoon I worked on my photo organizing project, mainly going through already-put-together albums and trying to wrap my head around what I’ve been doing with my life. Two things struck me. One, I’ve been doing quite a bit–going places, seeing things. Even way back in my high school and college years, I put a ton of miles on the road. Two, I’ve said a number of times on the blog that I was fourteen when my dad got arrested and fifteen when he went to prison. But after looking through dated pictures and talking to my parents today, I realized I was fourteen for the entire ordeal. Dad left home two weeks BEFORE I turned fifteen. I know that’s not much of a difference, but still, I’ve been wrong about that little detail for a long time now.

All those years are such a daze.

As I’m only able to dig through my memories for a couple hours at a time (it’s not bad, it’s just “a lot”), I spent the rest of this afternoon watching two movies on my laptop–the animated film Coco and Crazy, Stupid, Love. And although Crazy, Stupid, Love was enjoyable (well, looking at Ryan Reynolds was enjoyable), Coco absolutely won me over. It’s about a boy who LOVES music but feels like an outsider because his family HATES it (because his great-great grandfather left his wife and child in order to “follow his dream.”) Anyway, it’s glorious from start to finish and even involves dead people (skeletons) dancing and singing.

I definitely cried.

Honestly, it feels like a movie night. It’s cold outside, and the idea of closing this laptop and crawling back in my warm bed with ANOTHER film sounds simply perfect. I don’t know–I’ve been reading serious book after serious book lately and flipping through all these memories/emotions, and I’m tired of thinking, thinking, thinking and processing, processing, processing. Plus, my stomach has been upset pretty much nonstop for a few months now, and movies are a good distraction, a nice way to “get away.”

So I’m gonna do that. Go watch a movie. Call it a night. Try again tomorrow.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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It’s never too late to be your own friend.

"

Too Late, Too Tired (Blog #588)

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It’s just before midnight, and I’m at my friend Justin’s house. His wife Ashley (who is also my friend) has already retired, and I think Justin’s playing video games. I’ve spent the last five hours here at their kitchen table using their internet and changing every online and social media password I have. (Apparently I have a lot.) This is a project I started a couple weeks ago after a minor security breach on my laptop (I got a virus) but didn’t finish because I spilled hot tea on my keyboard (whoops). Anyway, I think I’m done now. Finally.

I just counted. 75 sites/passwords total. No wonder it took so long.

This afternoon I worked on my photo organizing project. Not organizing the photos–that’s already been done–but organizing my brain. I’m putting together a timeline of my life, like in a document. Super nerdy, I know, but last night I watched a 60 Minutes feature about rare people who remember every day–every second, really–of their lives. Like, what they had for breakfast on September 3, 1976, and what happened in the news that day. Anyway, there are like ten of these people in the world. Crazy. And I don’t need to reconstruct my ENTIRE life, but I would like to get some of the basics on paper. 1999: Graduated high school, worked at summer camp, started college, got first “real” job.

Today I concentrated on my first few summers at summer camp, 1997-1999, and took notes about things I remembered as I flipped through pictures. That was the summer I had one of the worst sinus infections ever. My temperature was 103 degrees, and the camp nurse wouldn’t let me see a doctor. (I was pissed off but didn’t know what to do or how to stand up for myself at the time.) This is the most fascinating thing about this project so far, that I recall so strongly my impressions of various co-workers and campers. In some instances, although it’s been twenty years, I still remember first and last names of people I barely knew. Just like that.

Weird how memory can be so randomly selective.

Here’s a picture from 1999, my first year as a counselor. (Before that I was an “assistant” counselor.) Boy I wish I had that fire now; my feet are freezing. They always freeze during the winter. Every year it’s five months of constant toe-frost.

So many memories come flooding back as simple information–that thing happened. But many others come back as information plus emotion. Like, I remember feeling pissed off, embarrassed, disgusted, turned off, turned on, whatever. I guess it strikes me now because at the time I wasn’t one to either trust my perceptions or acknowledge my emotions. And this is the fascinating thing for me, that although I wasn’t consciously processing what was going on back then, my body was still taking it all in, still storing the data in the background the way my computer saves my passwords.

I’m ready to call it a night. My feet are cold, and my brain’s all over the place. Just twenty-four hours ago, right before I went to bed, my dad knocked on my door to tell me that a dear family friend of ours had passed away unexpectedly. I think I cried myself to sleep. Today I’ve been in denial. I want to write about him because I think that would help, but I can’t tonight. It’s too late, I’m too tired, and I won’t do him justice. So maybe tomorrow when I can think straight and take my time. I don’t mean to be start a topic and not finish it. I’m simply–done–for now.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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 Beautiful isn’t something that comes in a particular package. Beautiful is simply being yourself.

"

America, My Mom, and My Memories (Blog #586)

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This morning I got up early, like at seven, because my mom had a thing at the hospital. And whereas I’d planned to make breakfast then leave with my parents, I decided to vote instead. That’s right, America–I VOTED–instead of eating. You’re welcome.

In all honesty, I skipped breakfast because Dad said we could eat Chick-fil-A later. (Yes, I’m a gay man who eats at Chick-fil-A–it’s delicious!–get over it.) Plus, since I wanted to vote SOMETIME today, this morning’s situation worked out perfectly. I was there just after the polls opened in Van Buren, in and out in thirty minutes, and back at the house on time to pick up Mom and Dad. From there, we picked up my aunt, and the four of us were at the hospital about 8:30.

Over a year ago, my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and this last January she had a double mastectomy. Things are better now, over really, and today she had surgery to have her port (where they administered the chemotherapy) removed. Anyway, everything went great. The prep, surgery, and recovery all happened in about four hours, during which time my dad, aunt, and I visited with each other, read our respective books, and harassed total strangers in the waiting room. Well, Dad harassed total strangers in the waiting room. It’s sort of his thing.

Like, he asked Mom’s hot doctor, “Can I just leave her here with you?” Then after he wrangled the guy into looking at my aunt’s scratched/infected forearm and the guy left, my dad said, “I was TRYING to keep him over here because you’re single and he’s rich and good looking.” My mouth dropped open just as my aunt said, “Don’t you think he’s good looking, Marcus?” (So she was in on it too.)

This is the price you pay for talking to your family about your private life.

Since Mom felt all right after her surgery (they used a mild anesthetic, apparently), afterwards we ran a couple errands and went out for Mexican food. Then we came home, and because I’d spent the morning exhausted from being up early, I went straight to bed and took a nap.

And no, I did not dream of the hot doctor. (He’s married–to a woman–and I have boundaries.)

This evening as Mom and Dad watched the election results, I worked more on my photo-organizing project. Specifically, I sorted the rest of my summer camp photos into years, then placed several “strays,” about two dozen physical photos that I’ve managed to collect over the last couple years. (Everything is digital these days.) Here’s where I’m at so far–four full storage bins of photos and one full storage bin of negatives and index cards (cards with miniature versions of the photos on the negatives). The minimalist in me thinks this is a lot of photos, but overall I’m thrilled because I had eight full storage bins of photos and negatives before this project started.

Any progress is good progress.

Once everything was sorted into large-ish groups, I arranged my index cards by date (some of them, but not all, have dates on them) so I could get an idea of WHEN all these memories actually took place. I’m hoping this will help me formulate a timeline later. Like, Oh right, that summer I dyed my hair blue was the same summer I took that photography class. Or whatever. I’m not sure why this is important to me, to get all these memories organized and labeled; I just know it is. Plus, I’m not great at guessing ages–even my own–based on photos, so if I don’t do it now, it’ll be tougher later. Like tonight I had several photos of my nephew out, and I had to ask my mom and text my sister to help me decide how old he was in each one. Thankfully, they knew. Now all those are labeled. Phew.

That’s a relief.

The end.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"Sure, people change, but love doesn't."

Timeless (Blog #582)

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Hum. What to say? Today was–a day. I woke up, ate breakfast, and spent a couple hours organizing old photos. (This project’s going to take a while.) Then I took a nap, ate dinner with my family (Mom made a roast), went for a two-hour walk, and ate again.

The end.

Really, I wish I had something more remarkable to talk about, but some days are–well–forgettable. This is something I’ve thought about during my photo organizing project. The pictures represent roughly ten years of my life, and that’s over 3,600 days. 3,600 days I woke up, did something, and went to bed. And yet SO FEW of these days stand out specifically by–well–date. I keep texting my friends asking, “What year did that happen?” Not that I don’t have hundreds of memories–I actually have pretty great recall for names, faces, events, and places–but everything is jumbled together.

For example, here’s a picture of me, my friend Justin (before he grew a beard), his brother, and their uncle when we visited Justin’s family in upstate New York. My first guess was that it was in 2003. As it turns out, it was 2009, Justin said, just before Justin and I became roommates.

Justin’s great with dates. It’s the way his mind works. I used to keep calendars, and maybe that’s why I needed them, as my brain lumps things into different, non-linear categories–people I know through dance, times I’ve visited Albuquerque, theater shows I’ve seen, or EXACTLY where I was standing whenever such-and-such happened.

I threw my old calendars away several years ago during one of my purges, but I kept wishing today that I still had them to help me label and sort my photos. For the same reason, I’ve been wishing I’d kept daily journals growing up, something like this blog. But then, really, even I wouldn’t want to go back and read them. Oh yeah, THAT was the day I had a sinus infection and ate macaroni for lunch.

Which, honestly, could have been ANY day.

As I’ve thought about it this evening, it’s occurred to me that although my brain LOVES the idea of my memories being filed away neatly by date, my body–and yours–jumbles everything together. One minute you’re right here, right now, laughing with your friends, the next minute you’re back in your childhood, that awful thing just happened, and you’re crying.

I don’t know–sometimes I look at old photos and wish I still had that outfit or that waistline. Or I wish I’d done more, done less. Taken more pictures, better pictures. Kept better records. Whatever. But this afternoon I remembered a trip to Dallas as a child and recalled exactly where I was standing when I heard “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus. Five minutes later I was twenty years older, in upstate New York with Justin and his family, on our way to Niagara Falls. Twenty years, thirty years–what’s the difference?–it’s like it was yesterday. For these reasons, I know age, waistlines, and outfits don’t matter–because we’re so much more than anything you can keep track of with a photo or a calendar. Truly, we’re ageless. Truly, we’re timeless.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Give yourself an abundance of grace.

"

On Cleaning Up the Past (Blog #578)

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It’s 8:30 in the evening, and I just finished eating dinner–a bowl of chili and a salad. Before that, I went on a two-hour walk around Van Buren. Everyone has their Halloween decorations on display. And whereas one creative person went all out and put a skeleton pushing an old-fashioned lawnmower in their backyard, two nextdoor neighbors–Christians, I assume–simply stuck matching signs in their front yards that said, “The only ghost that lives here is the Holy Ghost.”

Groan.

And then there was the family whose yard was already full of Christmas inflatables. I don’t know–I’m all for the celebrating the virgin birth of Christ, but I really feel like these folks are jumping the gun. I mean, it’s still October!

I guess that’s what you’d call a premature immaculation.

This afternoon I spent several hours organizing old photos, a project I started yesterday. Ugh. This is going to take a while, since despite my sorting hundreds of photos today, I still have thousands to go. Oh well, what else am I doing with my life?

Here’s a picture of my progress thus far. The photo sticking up is from my 21st birthday, on which I went out for–wait for it–coffee. (I’m not kidding.) Anyway, I have a “tab” for every major place (junior high, high school, home) or event (summer camp, trip to Thailand, etc.). Thankfully, many of the photos have dates printed on them or I just remember–That was 1995–but in some cases I’m just guessing–Uh, I think that was sometime in college. Isn’t that weird how certain details of your life can just disappear?

Here’s a picture I found from my sophomore year in high school. I was 16, and our class was on a field trip. Check out that beret. Can you believe I used to tell people that I was straight? I filed this picture under a section called “The Power of Self-Delusion,” alternatively titled “Reasons Everyone Knew before I Did.”

While sorting through pictures from elementary school, I found images of old classmates who are now dead. This was a real shock to my system, to see them as I remember them–young, vibrant, full of potential–and yet know that they’ve long stopped breathing.

Hum. No one thinks it will happen to them, but it happens to everyone. Death, that is. “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?” Mary Oliver asks.

Also while going through elementary school photos, I ripped up some pictures of a kid that I thought was–quite honestly–a jerk. Not that I assume he’s a jerk now, but at the time, for sure. So twenty years later–rip, rip, rip–that felt good.

My therapist says that some of the deepest and longest lasting wounds we carry are from childhood. I guess because we’re so impressionable, our hearts wide open. So I’m trying now to be okay with whatever arises while looking at all these old photos, to be open to any thoughts and reactions I may have shoved down that want to come up. Like, Awe, I liked him. Or, What an asshat! Because I’m tired of self-delusion. I’d rather be honest. For this reason, as much as I see this project as a “tidy” and “orderly” thing to do, I also see it as a healthy thing to do. That is, I see it as another way to get real, a symbolic act to get my past in order, to clean it up the best I can and properly put it behind me.

[Me and my longtime friend Neil. From seventh grade, I think, spirit week.]

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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if you're content with yourself and you're always with yourself, then what's the problem?

"

An Anything but Awkward Kid (Blog #577)

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It’s eleven at night, and I’m blogging from my phone–one letter at a time–because I spilled tea on my laptop keyboard yesterday. (It’s currently drying out. I hope.) We’ll see how this goes. I don’t have spell check on here.

This afternoon I finished reading a book about money by Seth Godin. I already returned the book to the library, but there was a line in the section about buying houses that went something like this–“Never fall in love with something you can’t afford.” Is that great or what?

Personally, I wish I’d heard this piece of advice BEFORE I started dating.

This evening I got a wild hair and began organizing my printed photos, a project that has been on my mental to-do list for a while now. Anyway, I pulled out Rubbermaid tub after Rubbermaid tub full of pictures from my closet, laid everything out before me, and quickly got overwhelmed. Y’all, I took A LOT of pictures in my teens and early twenties. Granted, I was on the yearbook staff in college and had access to a decent camera, but whatever.

So. Many. Pictures. And barely organized.

Here’s a random dance photo of me and my friend Kira performing at the Dr. Pepper Stage at the Fort Smith Rodeo. Our group used to do that every year.

Taking deep breaths and reminding myself that any progress is better than nothing, my first task was to separate the pictures into large groups–summer camp, dance, high school, and college. Quickly, I thumbed through a hundred memories. What a trip this was, looking back over a solid decade of my existence, a dozen haircuts, waist sizes, and ages. There I was 18. There I was 30. Did either of these men even know the first thing about life?

Does this one?!

Here’s a picture of me and my friend Cameron, who drove from Texas to surprise me for my 30th birthday. I felt like shit that day, for my surprise party. I’d been sick for weeks, and–honestly–was not amused by the surprise itself. I was and am, however, deeply touched by all my friends who showed up.

After my “first pass,” I began grouping the photos more specifically–birthday parties, college yearbook staff, family photos from 2001 (the year Dad came home from prison). I also started throwing pictures away. I know this amounts to sacrilege for some people, but really, what need do I have of photos that are blurry? Or of photos of people I don’t remember or of couples who are no longer married?

Like I’m gonna pull THOSE out the next time one of them comes over to visit. Remember that time you married an asshole?! (God, that was THE BEST CAKE.)

I’ve said before that my butt’s always been the same size (roughly the size a bowling ball) and that I’ve just grown into it. Well, here’s proof from my pre-teen years and the swimming pool next door. Notice the super-cool elastic waist band.

Here’s another picture from several years later (I think). Surely I’d started puberty. Either way–same butt, bigger body.

After a few hours of this picture-sorting business, all while sitting on the floor, my body said stop. So I’ll get back to it tomorrow, or at least that’s my plan. Considering I have stacks of photos blocking my closet door, I NEED to get back to it tomorrow if I ever want to wear clean clothes again.

Even with “just a little bit” of this project completed, I already feel all the emotions. There are so many pictures of people, grandparents, who are no longer alive. People I used to spend SO MUCH time with, and yet now we hardly speak. And it’s not like–in most cases–we knew the end was coming. It just did. One day, things weren’t the same as they used to be. This is life–people pass away and people move away. People fall in love with other people who aren’t you.

And there’s no going back.

Aside from all the emotions and a definite feeling of–Where did the time go?–I’m enjoying getting the photos in a rough chronological order. I am, after all, a neat freak, and it’s good to have my memories nearly stacked away. Plus, I don’t know, there are times I know I wasn’t fully present for my life, times I was just keeping my head above water and maintaining appearances, and those memories are jumbled. So the pictures are helping me get things straight. Oh yes, this happened, and then this happened, and then THAT happened.

I hope that makes sense.

The other thing I like about this project is that I’m finding more compassion for myself. Back then I felt so awkward. Even lately, so often I’ve looked at old photos and picked myself apart, like, Why did I ever wear that outfit, or stand that way? But today I’ve seen a kid who was under immense emotional and physical stress who was doing the best he could. A kind kid. A good looking kid. An anything but awkward kid. A kid I’d give anything if I could go back and tell, “You’re gonna be all right, baby. I promise. You have everything you’ll ever need inside you. Relax. It’s all going to be okay.”

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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So perhaps perfection has little to do with that which changes and everything to do with that which doesn't. For surely there is a still, small something inside each of us that never changes, something that is timeless and untouchable, something inherently valuable and lovable--something perfect.

"