Say Cheese!

A friend of mine showed me a picture of her adorable two-year old daughter tonight. In the photo, her cutie-pie was sitting at this horrible angle and doing the smushed face, double-chin action that no adult would ever do (or we would force whoever took the picture to delete it, immediately). It made me giggle and feel wistful for the days that I didn't have that awareness of the camera.

I absolutely hated seeing pictures of myself, probably until I started getting headshots done and realized how to angle myself in a way that looked attractive. Oh, and not let the complete and total spazz within my soul shimmy it's way out of my face. For example:

I like how my childhood friend Brianna couldn't be less interested in my present-opening. BRIANNA: it's a California Beach Taxi! Wake up! She seems pretty fascinated with that party horn, so all is forgiven.

Or what I believe was next years birthday:

I'm the one on the end in the glasses with the arm that resembles a stork or seagull leg. Not my best angle. (And no matter what I did, apparently my birthday parties were not enthralling enough to squeeze a smile out of Brianna.)

But the picture that really captures the full awkwardness of my childhood, the one that used to send me whining and crying to my mother to PLEASE take it out of the frame and destroy it as a teenager was this gem:

I'm definitely not worrying about my double chin here! Not to mention my WAY before the times Kate Gosslyn haircut with confetti style headband. Boy, oh boy was I a looker. This was around the time that I asked my mother if she thought I would grow up to be beautiful. She responded with, "You will always be unique-looking and that's even better!" 

I ran to my room crying.

The funny thing is that of all the "glamorous" or "sexy" pictures I have now taken, THAT horrifying 4th grade school picture is my absolute favorite picture of myself of all time. I have no awareness of what I look like and frankly, I think I look fairly pleased with myself.