I used to be so critical of myself.  This picture, after we took it, I remember thinking how frumpy I thought I was.  My hair frizzy and not done, my clothes baggy, my back hunched, my elbows chubby and no make up on. I hated how I looked in those pictures. 

Now when I look at these two pictures, I see magic.  I see myself as beautiful, raw, real, in the moment, in love.  I feel and see the beauty of the moment that was blessed to be captured for me. I get to look back on this for the rest of my life and remember.  

Remember that I was young, beautiful and held by the one I loved.  I see myself in that picture now and see none of the criticisms I held when it was taken.  I see my smile, softening my face as I look at Grant.  It’s just a little soft smile barely visible.

Yet it’s there and says so much, as the sweetness of its gentle subtle lift  lights my whole face in the way I’m looking at him.  I remember how much I loved him.  My hair blowing in the soft breeze.

I see the wild parts of it, remembering the humidity and how my hair just did that. So of course I didn’t do my hair, it would have looked that way no matter what I did.  I wanted more to be in that moment and love it. 

I did not worry about my hair.  My beautiful, long, wild hair shows me that I was in the presence of that moment as I held my beloved and that is beautiful.  Not perfect hair, but a perfect moment.  

My clothes fell softly around me as his hands pulled me in with space to feel comfortable.  Love wrapped its arms around me as his hands touched my hips and pulled me in close to him with nothing but comfort in that moment.  

I can feel it again if I close my eyes and remember what those hands felt like. I see my posture, my back leaning into him because I wanted to be so close to him, to love him. Feel him.  The softness of my posture shows the closeness. That is filled with love.  

My arms rested on his as he held me. We looked into the vastness of the views before us.  It reminds me that we looked to our future together.  At that moment we’d only have a few years left, but we didn’t think that at all.  It was me and him.

Our togetherness lived in that moment.   We were together and it felt like it would last forever and so it was for us in that forever moment. The picture gives me that forever moment anytime I wish.

Every picture I look back on now, I don’t see myself as I did when I took it.  I had so many things I focused on previously that weren’t important but I thought they were.  The things I’d change, the way I looked, how I needed a better angle and a better outfit.

I thought about how to work out a little more and lose a little weight.  All these things that are ridiculous when I look back and just see how beautiful I was in those moments. Oh how much all those pictures mean to me now.  Now, I love the way I look no matter what. 

Now when I take pictures I don’t see the things I would have been critical of anymore.  I see me.  I love what I see, even when the angle isn’t flattering. Or whether I’m not done up or the light is bad or whatever.  It’s all me and I love every aspect of me.   

I also know that one day I’ll look back on these pictures and see myself in a perspective I don’t yet have. When I do, that will give even more meaning to these moments that are now. They will likewise be something totally different when I look back on them years later. 

These pictures will become my future memories. I have learned to also treasure the now, even more than I did before.  I know that the past is never certain to be part of my future.  What I have now, at this moment I take in a picture. 

It is the beautiful presence of my existence and that is powerful to know. Pictures are worth a thousand words. They are worth even more millions of feelings that can come back. In a moment of remembering something that once was, and then was lost; but still is in a memory. 

The picture is the gift of each present and presence.  So now, as I look at myself looking into the vast landscape before us, as my beloved held me; we look as if into the future. It was unknown and it was from then.  I know now what would come to us.

I’m no longer afraid of it, because it’s that past now. The beauty held in that moment of us together not knowing what would come, but loving what is. That is the potential of every moment. Without any fear of the painful loss that comes with time.

Instead, with the beautiful growth that comes with every moment remembered and shared.