The Younger Me

AN OLD PHOTO THAT KIND OF RUINED MY DAY

Seriously, I have no idea why this turned out to be such an issue. And this might be one of my most pointless posts ever. But yeah. Hopefully someday in the future I might reread this post and actually know what's going on.

I'm confounded, seriously, by this strange, overwhelming, unpleasant sentiment that came out of looking at my nine-year-old self (I think I was nine then).

It's nothing much, actually. It's just a passport photo. And it was nothing out of the ordinary, too. I was just this little bald kid, smiling, with a colorful striped T-shirt.

I wasn't startled right away, when I looked at the photo. I just thought that I looked cute back then.

Then I held the photo up to the mirror and tried to imitate the smile. Then the unpleasantness set in. And I didn't know why I felt the way I did. It was weird. And then I just lay on the bed and kept staring at the photo, at my own nine-year-old face, trying to analyze the odd emotion that resided in my chest.

I raised my eyes to the clock and found that I had been staring at it for a full fifteen minutes. Wow. Quite a way to kill time.

And I just could not come to understand why it caused me so much discomfort to look at my younger self. But for some reason, it seems that this feeling is undeniably tied to the idea that I've changed. And I don't even know why it startles me. Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe it's something else. But it feels like it's this.

The thing is, probably, that looking at my younger self reminds me of how much I've changed. The face I see in the mirror and the face I see in the photo seem to be two completely different persons, but not in terms of facial appearance. My mindset, my perspectives, and my desires have become so different. Is it a good thing? I wouldn't hesitate to answer yes, but the inner melancholy is still there.

It could be that I also feel a little pity for my younger self. I was so self-absorbed, so involved in my own thinking and imagination that it was frightening. It's frightening because you have to come out of it at some point. And he will, in a few years, after enduring some very stupid but real struggles.

Who am I now? My eyebrows are significantly thicker, that's for sure; I don't look as pure and innocent as I did. There's a roughness of expression, a glare in the eyes that I've developed. And there's also some loss of simplicity. I earnestly hope that doesn't include a loss of genuineness. Finally, there's this sense that God had entered into my life and turned it upside down. That's something the younger me did not have, nor expect. His dreams and fantasies were shattered.

The feeling was so alien and so deeply rooted that I found I didn't have the mood to do anything, especially my homework. I resorted to walking around the house, repeatedly going on Facebook, and reading some shorter articles.

The feeling lifted when I couldn't stand my waste of time any longer and sat down to pray. Oddly enough, the prayer didn't have anything to do with the photo nor what it caused me to feel. My heart turned to heaven, to the transcendent One, and I began, my Father, You are perfect. You are the great God of heaven, and You are pleased within Yourself. You are so happy, and Your happiness so independent of everything else. You are overflowing richness.

And then I had nothing more to ask. That was good enough for me.

My heart felt remarkably free again.

Strange day it is.