Photography and Sense of Self

The week before last, my dad started singing, "There's No Business Like Show Business," for some reason. It reminded me of the summer after I was in the 6th grade, when I was in a show at the King Opera House in Van Buren, AR. It was an all-ages musical review, loosely tied together with some flimsy narrative that I'm sure was pretty terrible.

For my bit, we kids were supposed to be siblings in a giant family. The lady who played our mom was actually extremely pregnant at the time. Someone had gotten a good deal on this bright pink fabric with blue... hippos? elephants? on it, and we all had some element of our costume made out of it. Mine was a flouncy-sleeved blouse, a littler girl had a dress, a male friend had a button-up shirt, the pregnant lady had a maternity jumper dress.

At one point in the show, my parents had bought me some cotton candy, and I was standing in the alley behind the opera house waiting for my cue. My dad took a picture, and I remember thinking how awesome my life was: I was getting to be in a real show (not school-related!), and I was eating cotton candy, and did life get any better than that?

Time passed, as we had to fill up the entire roll of film and then wait for it to be developed. You kids might not know what I'm talking about, but it could sometimes be months after a photo was taken before you could see it.

This is that picture.

As an adult, I think that's a super cute picture that captures a very fun time in my life. I believe the person standing partially in the frame is my friend and classmate Anna Williams; I think she was in a different part of the show than I was, but she has a body suit on in the same colors (there were blue sequins across the front).

As a kid seeing this photo of myself, I was heart-broken. I saw a fat (??!!?!?!!??) dork with huge glasses and frizzy hair that looked nothing like Amanda King's! (I'd gotten my long, straight hair cut off and a spiral perm so I could resemble Kate Jackson's iconic character, not realizing that I could not possibly have feathered hair without using styling implements, and I did not have the hardware nor the skills to pull that off.) I didn't even notice the farmer's tan at the time. I guess I didn't wear sleeveless tops as a kid.

This picture was absolute devastation to me at the time, and it was years -- decades, probably -- before I ever wanted to look at it again. For a long period, the photos associated with this program tainted its memory for me. I'm very sad about that part. I wish there were a way to go back and repair that.

It wasn't, however, the first time a picture of me had conflicted to strongly with my self-view. I vividly remember the first one, and it was years before this.

I was in second grade, and I was having a pretty good hair day. I'd grown my hair out extremely long, and had it cut by my Pepa, who was a barber. He'd cut my hair Dorothy-Hamill-short, and I didn't hate it, but once it started growing back out, I started to feel almost glamorous.

One night, after I was dressed for bed, I put on a bunch of my mom's necklaces and she let me wear some make-up, as well. I asked for her to take a picture of me as a model. In my brain was probably Brooke Sheilds. 

This, however, is the picture we got.

I forgive you for laughing, truly I do.

Again, I see now that this is precious. When I was seven, it made me HATE... something. I don't know what. Probably myself, or my self-denial. I couldn't even have put a name on the dissonance here, but when my mom took the picture, I felt pretty. When I saw it, I knew this wasn't even remotely close to what was in the magazines. 

I didn't even know what a "double chin" was, but for a long time wondered why my mom hadn't told me to lift my head up a little bit... but of course she didn't. You don't tell a child how to pose to eliminate that kind of thing because it is vapid and cruel, even if you mean well.

Growing up, I really liked myself. I thought I was neat, and talented, and even pretty at times. I got the message that I wasn't quite as ++something++ as other girls, but I liked my individuality. Heck, I even tried out for "Man in the Moon," Reese Witherspoon's debut film at the age of 14, when they did a southern open casting tour. I mean, who did I think I was? I thought I was something, but clearly "the world" didn't perceive me as I perceived myself. Even the camera didn't.

As I have been thinking about this, it has helped me be a lot more understanding as to why D doesn't like to look at old pictures. For me, those pictures are super happy memories of my kid's growing up. For D, they're jarring and upsetting. And I get this on some level.

Both of the above pictures were before I ever thought of going on a diet, even though I knew that I was fatter than other girls my age. I'm extremely grateful that dieting and weight loss wasn't a part of my life before I went to college. I might have detested the way I looked, but I guess it seemed like Weight Watchers and Herbalife supplements were something grown-ups did. Thank god there wasn't WW Kurbo when I was in elementary school.

Also, every picture I view from when I was a minor reveals that I was never as "fat" as I thought I was, even though I was definitely told I was fat from the time I was in junior high on up; and, obviously, now I realize that even if I'd been the giant tub I thought I was, that would have been fine and people shouldn't make anyone feel unworthy as a person because they aren't... whatever it is that people want people to look like in the moment.

I've mentioned that recently, it's hard to look at pictures of me as my body ages and changes. However, I've learned my lessons about this kind of thing. If I could have destroyed the above pictures in real time, I likely would have. My parents would have killed me, though, because they were irreplaceable and expensive. With the advent of digital photography, however, I've disposed of plenty of pictures, including one I regret to the extreme.

When we lived in Sherman, one morning D had gotten up super early when I was still in bed. We'd fallen back to sleep together, and Ken thought it was a cute little scene, so he took a picture with my camera. D was probably around 5 at the time, and it was a year or so into when I'd lost a substantial amount of weight.

I found the picture on my camera, though, and I HATED the way my jowls looked because of how I was lying. Without a second thought, I deleted the picture. I wish so much that I had it now. What a precious time.

A few years ago when a photographer friend of mine came to visit our "new" house, we walked to the lake, and she snapped a picture of Mal and me from below as we made our way down the rocks to the water line. That picture is SO unflattering of me. It's just bad. It's bad enough that I'm not sharing it here, because I still HATE that it makes me look like I'm 4 feet tall (I'm 5'6" or 7") and that I'm wearing rubber bands in several locations across my abdomen. It's very upsetting.

But because I'm getting smarter, I saved the picture. Someday, I'll probably love it. It's been three years and I still hate it, but some day...

Also, we don't have to dress or pose in ways that are "flattering." "Flattering" almost always means "makes you look skinnier," and it's a super dumb standard. I know this intellectually. I believe it spiritually. But that dissonance when you see a picture of yourself that isn't how you feel you are on any level is so distressing.

I get why people say, "I just feel better when I weigh a little less" (than what?). There were several years when I could easily look at pictures of myself and think, "Cute!" The first time that the "Ick, what?!" returned was in early 2012, when still weighed a lot less than I do now, and I'd fixed up for a formal event where they took professional portraits. Seeing the picture was devastating because I had felt so elegant and beautiful all night, then felt frumpy and "Well, you tried" after that.

In fact, I ran across this picture from this time 9 years ago (2011), when a friend and I visited Austin for the first time. Here's the picture I shared of our delicious stop at Taste of Ethiopia (same place, different location, as where James and I got take-out on 4th of July weekend this year!).

I had cropped it a bit to "get rid of the white space," but the real reason I cropped it is that I didn't like the "bulges" at my general belly area.

HA! Bulges. Man. What a waste of energy and self-hate.

But the cure for this wasn't to lose MORE weight, because no matter how much weight I lost, I still felt like I was bigger than the average person, and it was a constant battle to stay that size. I thought I was doing the hard stuff, working out all of the time and carefully monitoring what I put in my mouth. Truth is, the much harder work is figuring out why an image of yourself can make you mad at yourself and generate self-loathing.

Excising fatphobia is an ongoing work, but it has made me healthier and happier and better able to be present for my family. I'm still working on being able to truly appreciate pictures of myself. I think that's probably even a little bit better than thinking, "Whoo, I'm hot sh!t!" because I've acted in very self-absorbed ways when I felt like this.

Also, know that you're the only one examining your pictures as critically as you are (unless you're a social media influencer or celebrity, and I can't imagine the BS that comes with that; people really feel entitled to notice and remark on EVERYTHING then). Never delete pictures! And don't let your happiness or self-worth hinge on your captured appearance. The way you feel is the true you. Be that guy.