My childhood-into-lifelong friend Alice (thank you, Facebook) is a keeper of the flame of old photos. She initially found a photo of our girl gang and of course I was hiding in the back row, ashamed to be seen because of, what else, teen insecurities. Weight. Hair. Pimples. The usual suspects.

Alice was able to secure this follow-up picture from another friend from our group when I noted I was curious to see the dress I wore that junior high school graduation day from a thousand years ago. I was not expecting my wish to be granted. Despite the anxiety accompanying a peek into our past, I was rewarded with this photo, cropped here to protect the online, public image of my friends.

I looked at the girl I was and I cried. That was me? That’s what I was hiding? Where is the chubby girl with chubby cheeks and ill-timed acne? I want to hug that girl and tell her I love her, I miss her, and I’m proud of who and what she has become. Why did I want her to always be in the shadows? Why did I secretly want to be the life of the party but fail to follow that dream?

I know. I know. I think I know.

I knew I was someone I liked on the inside, alone in thoughts, alone in my head, alone in a roomful of people.

The girl I showed the world, in my own naïveté and stupidity, was not worthy of attention or admiration or the spotlight. I saw the darkness. The wrong hair, weight, skin, smile, clothing. The wrong everything. The teen magazines telling us how to transform into the perfect person if only I did this, this, and this were made for me.
I bought into this propaganda like an obedient lady-in-waiting of the court.

And now, there is light. Snap snap snap. I can see you now.

You are not watching The Others in all their glory in the center of the circle.

Step forward, younger me. Take that shame and doubt out of the picture.

I know I’m not alone. A pity we dwell for decades thinking we are the worst this or that. What a waste of time only to see the person we were not.

I’m talking to you, 1970s Me. Snap snap snap out of it.

Very 1975 au courant. Check out the groovy, clashing corsage on my wrist. Who picked -that- out?!