Photos.

I’m supposed to be working now, though while waiting for my STR groupmates to actually go online, I’ve decided to write this short post.

It’s been my second hour looking through photos of my past, in places like dusty old albums, photos I’m tagged in on Facebook, an album here, an album there, and that occasional album on Friendster. In most of my high school photos, I’m usually shown presenting an expression of either pained indifference or a general hatred of the world, which is unsurprising as this was my usual facial expression anyway. Nevertheless, some photos do stand out:

There are a handful of photos where I actually let out a smile. In more recent parts, this was intentional; the older smiling photos were more candid. I have this one photo of me from first year side-by-side with Jelor Gallego, as if we were friends. I have a scan of a news photo from the Philippine Star way back in 2004, showing Manny Villar browsing through products at a stall I happened to be manning at a kids’ entrepreneurial workshop, one which my parents had me join for some reason. Most photos of me in albums show me squinting at the old family camera, with the very first album starting off with ultrasound scans of me in my mother’s womb.

These photos I would never forget, for the fact that  they’re different, they’re what I want people to remember me by. I don’t want to  be remembered as the guy who constantly looks mad at the world; I want to be the guy who couldn’t help squinting at the camera, the guy who sometimes lets out an awkward smile, the guy who made choices in his life, the guy who was actually happy with life.

I can’t change my face in any of my photos anymore, though I still have control over those photos that are soon to come.

Thus explains my recent vanity.

And, yes, I do want to be taken from my good side.

Notes

  1. dothemath reblogged this from theindirectproof and added:
    picture would this
  2. theindirectproof posted this