Pre-selfie.
I know that as women, we’re not “supposed to” love photos of ourselves. It’s considered conceited or vain to appreciate how you look, and women should desire to be meek and humble and have absolutely no idea that they’re beautiful or amazing or strong. (Barf.) Well, I’m going to go against the grain there and just lay it out there that I adore this photo of me.
While I don’t look particularly put together or pretty (aaandd there it is—the false humility—because apparently not even I can resist throwing in a tiny bit of self-deprecation after a bold declaration like the one above!), this photograph brings to mind some of my happiest memories in high school. It was taken on my 17th birthday, right after my friends surprise-attacked me at 5:30 in the morning. (Too bad for them, I had woken up 30 minutes earlier to have coffee with my parents. Muahaha!)
But even though they missed their opportunity to serve as my alarm clock, they helped me get ready in less than 15 minutes (which, I must say, is close to impossible) before driving me to Starbucks for my birthday celebration. As you can see, Shelby put a Princess crown on my head and Katie took pictures the whole way there.
I really like this one for two reasons:
At that moment, and every moment until the end of the day, I was splendidly happy. You know those days when you feel like you're on top of the world? Well, that's how I felt, like anything was possible. I'm not exaggerating when I say that everything about it was absolutely perfect.
For some reason, whenever I look at the girl in this photo, I see a teenage version of my mom. I feel like the resemblance between us is evident in a lot of our old pictures, but especially in this one. I'm not sure why that is, but I love it.