Self Portrait Tuesday 2.14

How dreadful to do this on Valentine's Day. Self Portrait Tuesday for the month of February is titled "All of Me" and we are challenged to face our true selves, not the person we reveal to the rest of the world, but the person we have hidden, or dont like to admit we are. We can use old photos, new photos of ourselves in a real setting--no masks, no perfect poses, etc.

I admit that I was at first planning to participate. I have some great photos that can bring a gasp from anyone, including my own mother. So I dug thru my photo box as best as I could (remember I have a soon to be three year old and a newborn! Time is of the essence!) and found some doosies. Then as the first Tuesday of the month approached, fear set in. How in the world could I put these horrible, revealing, personal shots up for the world to observe. Undoubtedly some would laugh, others would post "encouraging" comments, some weirdos I dont even know would post hurtful comments, and a number of people would think to themselves, "wow, that is bad!" So I balked. I was "too busy" and decided I'd wait til posting was safe again. But then I viewed the portraits of my friends in the blog world. The honesty and fearlessness they demontrated when approaching this subject was flat out inspirational. And I made a deal with myself that I was going to participate. So here we go.

Me, 5th grade



This picture represents not only a real tough time looks-wise for me, but a tough time emotionally. But let's deal with the looks first. I can honestly say to whomever was responsible for the haircut, "what were you thinking?" Just the year before I had shoulder length hair that was a little wild, but certainly better than this do! And for some reason I went to the eye doctor and he prescribed glasses for me. Never before and never since have I had to wear glasses! Was the problem somehow corrected in a years time? I was also still growing into the huge permanent teeth with the wide gap that was thankfully corrected with braces. Then there are some crazy things going on on my arm. Are they sores? scabs? or chocolate from the sundae I am eating with a straw? The whole things comes together to form one bad picture.

But behind all the ugly stuff on the outside was a lot of hurt on the inside. I had just the year before moved from a school with lots of friends to a school where I was the one made fun of, teased, threatened, names were made up for me, and I couldnt figure it out for the life of me. At the same time my mom and stepdad were having problems at home, and my adopted little brother had just joined the family, which should have been wonderful, but he had had a really hard life before coming to us and those problems were adding to the tension our family was already experiencing.

When I look at this photo I see a smile but I also see sadness and pain. I dont like how I look, but I hate how I felt. So here you have a piece of me.