You never really know what's really happening behind the curated social media presence. The IG photos with the filters and the hashtags. The FB posts of the happy family. When I visited my parents on the weekend, I realized that this isn't a new phenomenon. We have been curating our lives in photos since photos existed.
These bins represent the photos taken in my childhood. For whatever reason, the effort was made to take photos, to have them developed (and we lived nowhere near a mall), and to bring them home and pass them around at family gatherings.
And then they were put away. These bins are an improvement from the random plastic bags the photos used to be stored in.
It was...weird...going thru these. If you didn't know any better, you would think I had a happy childhood based on the photos. Because no one ever took photos of Dad's depression naps or him barking at us at the kitchen table. No photo evidence of the sibling abuse, or the period of time where my brother would pinch my ass and my parents would tell me 'he only does it because you react'. No photo evidence of being estranged from my half-sisters.
Oh wait, there is evidence of the sibling abuse. The look in his eyes tell me that this was not meant to be funny.
I have begged them for years to deal with these. I even offered to do the work when I was on mat leave 14 years ago. Even before that, when I was in high school. I don't know why it bothers me that my childhood documentation is just shoved away in a bin.
I may have talked them into getting them professionally scanned. Or maybe they were just agreeing with me to get me to shut up and go away. As usual, nothing I say is considered to be of any value.
These bins represent the photos taken in my childhood. For whatever reason, the effort was made to take photos, to have them developed (and we lived nowhere near a mall), and to bring them home and pass them around at family gatherings.
And then they were put away. These bins are an improvement from the random plastic bags the photos used to be stored in.
It was...weird...going thru these. If you didn't know any better, you would think I had a happy childhood based on the photos. Because no one ever took photos of Dad's depression naps or him barking at us at the kitchen table. No photo evidence of the sibling abuse, or the period of time where my brother would pinch my ass and my parents would tell me 'he only does it because you react'. No photo evidence of being estranged from my half-sisters.
Oh wait, there is evidence of the sibling abuse. The look in his eyes tell me that this was not meant to be funny.
I have begged them for years to deal with these. I even offered to do the work when I was on mat leave 14 years ago. Even before that, when I was in high school. I don't know why it bothers me that my childhood documentation is just shoved away in a bin.
I may have talked them into getting them professionally scanned. Or maybe they were just agreeing with me to get me to shut up and go away. As usual, nothing I say is considered to be of any value.
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