The Life of a Snapshot

   I love pictures. Old pictures, black and white pictures, funny pictures, random pictures. Pictures that show expression and feelings...emotions. I love pictures because they resemble something. They symbolize a time that once was, but can never be lived again. No matter how hard someone tries, you cannot simply "re-take" the same exact picture, days after it has been shot. And here's why-its a memory. Memories can be both good and bad, but it is usually those that are good that we hold on to-just as we do with photographs and the numerous amounts of snapshots that are hung around our house and walls. Why, you may ask...well I shall tell you why...because pictures snapshots are memories that we want to hold on to forever, and because life is a memory...a mere memory of past photographs.
    Earlier, as I sat in my room to pre-write this blog, my part of the wall was full of past photographs, past memories, that once was reality, but now is just a reminiscence of of what used to be. As I looked at the wall that was covered with the numerous amounts of snapshots, I had flashbacks of every single picture that was tapped to the thick wall. I had the flashback of my graduation. I was standing with one of my best friends, Tonya, where we jammed out to Shania Twain's "Man-I Feel Like a Woman" on the way to the ceremony, two hours before the moment of the clicking noise of the camera. I also had the flashback of my best friend, Hope, who has been my friend for the past ten years. It was the day that I went to her nine year old brother's (at the time) pee-wee football game against Garaway. They won. It was also the night where I met her boyfriend for the first time, and now they have been together for almost two years. And then there was the one picture that I wish I had more of. It is the only picture where the two people who are no longer in my life, even though I wish they were. It was the only picture that I have of my parent's and I, together. I'm wearing my cap and gown from graduation, Dad is wearing his blue muscle shirt that he has had ever since I was little, and then my mom is standing to the left of me and she's smiling. I look just like her-or that's what people tell me. And even that picture, too, is nothing but a time that has been frozen in a 4x6 glass frame.
   I have learned over the span and experiences of my life, that things sometimes, never truly last a lifetime, including marriage and relationships, and in my case-family. But I have also learned that memories can last a lifetime if you allow them to, not just placed in a 4x6 or an 8x10 frame, but in your heart. After all-the heart is the greatest picture frame of all, you might as well fill it to the fullest with a lifetime of snapshots.