This is me at about 4-5 months old - over fifty years ago, and another image of me a few years ago. The older I get, the more I can look back at an ever-fulfilling history of my life.
Earlier versions of myself gave birth to future versions of myself. Each iteration of who I am made their mark on who I am today. No one grows, if they can't change. I often think of past versions of myself who had to endure tough things, and I hold gratitude for her, and how previous versions grew through the challenges her season brought.
The older I have grown, there has been an ever increasing ability to unlearn and to learn. Unlearning is important because it is the act of shedding programming, habits, or traditions that no longer serve us that were instilled by others. After the breaking or unlearning, there is an opportunity to install more authenticity, more bravery, and more mastery - but this new and improved self is often met with ridicule from our closest others because we are breaking away from who we used to be and who they are familiar with. Stay the course, it is worth it.
My life has not at all been easy and I have faced a lifetime of significant challenges, but the closer I get to my authentic self, the more at-rest my soul is and the more at-peace I am.
I now look like a blonde version of my late paternal grandmother. I come from very strong grandmothers who faced their own challenges with strength, aplomb, and growth. Those two women did not crumble into lesser versions of themselves to cradle comfortable emotions, comfortable narratives, or distance from anything that caused them distress. They didn't manipulate their integrity to accommodate for conspiracy theories or changing tides, and they faced things with reality intact and head on. They were faithful women, capable of nuance, capable of seeing all the grays, they didn't need to be absolutely right, they were capable of percolating through information without changing truth in the face of information that feels threatening. I often wish I could sit and talk with them as a woman of my age and exchange ideas and immerse myself in the wisdom of the matriarchal figureheads of my family.
How does this involve photography? It doesn't - but photography harbours memories, and isn't that all that life is, really?
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