I love pictures. I really love hanging them around my house and having them on my desk at work. I like keeping them close to me.
People often don’t give pictures the credit they deserve. Pictures capture a single moment in time, just a second where the world is stopped for you. Each photo holds a memory of those seconds surrounding the photo. The moments leading up to it and the moments that took place post-snap. Some pictures aren’t as important as others but the ones that do mean the most are the ones with close friends and family.
We’re at a point in our lives when not everyone in the family is around the next year. Where today and every day is a gift to spend with family members we love who have always been around. The ones we wouldn’t know how to live without.
We’re also at a point in our lives when we figure out who our true friends are. We find out who will be there through the ups and downs. You figure out the friends who want to spend more than the holiday seasons catching up and throwing down and who just wants to catch up once a year.
As we get older, we will forget the small moments. We won’t remember when a grandparent or toddler-aged cousin made a funny joke. We won’t remember how our relatives embarrassed us by once again asking why we we’re single. We won’t remember all the other small harassments from them. Which might be a good thing. We might even forget the warm feelings we had inside during all those hated moments. Yet, bringing out one picture can bring all of that back.
A single photo of a group get together with our friends can bring back memories we had long forgotten. It brings back the nights you stayed out too long or the weekends you drank too much. It brings you back to moments you never wanted to leave. Moments you wish you could have back.
Just think how you look at photos now. You’ll find one from a couple years back and laugh trying to remember all that happened that one crazy night in college. Or you look back at photos from when you were a kid and it jolts your memory back to that moment. It brings it all back almost effortlessly and makes you smile.
This. This is why your older self will thank you for all the photos you take now. Once everyone is gone and your friends have gotten married and are with their own families, you’ll have photos to remind you. Remind you of all the good times that you had. All the good and bad memories of past family parties. The regretful times spent with an old boyfriend who is now doing his own thing. The joyful memories of times with your best girlfriends in an exciting city. Whether they are still your best friends or not, in that moment it was all you wanted. It was the best of times.
Years from now you will appreciate the moments you stopped to take a picture of. Older you will be able to look back and see that even though some things may have seemed stupid at the time – everything was worth it. You can’t go back in time to relive those days, so you need pictures to bring you back. They are the closest thing that we have to time travel. We can look at a photo and take ourselves back to that event.
You can take yourself back to those family parties and cherish the moments you can’t have with some of them anymore. You can remember the feelings you had and channel that joy into your new family celebrations.
You can take the joy from the photos you took with your best friends and channel that into the new friendships you have. Better yet, if those friends are still around, you can bring yourself back to the times you shared.
Pictures are incredible for so many reasons. Don’t be afraid to take a bunch in one night, because your future self will appreciate it when they can be taken back to those moments.
