30 in 30: Day 11 - A Recent Photo

Self Portrait
September 2009 Raleighwood, NC
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Day 11→A photo of you taken recently

When I was a kid I was fat.

There's really no other word for it. Fat. There were times that it didn't bother me, times I didn't notice it. Then I'd have to go clothes shopping with my mother and we be in the "Husky" section where all of the fat kid clothes were. Or the time I was at a birthday party and the mother of another "husky" kid was talking to my mother, looking at me, and saying, "It's so good to see another boy... like my son."

In the summer months between 6th and 7th grade (the transition summer between Elementary school and Jr. High, back in the day) I shot up several inches. My weight redistributed and suddenly, without doing anything intentional, I slimmed down. By my late teens/early twenties I was even skinny.

For years before that growth spurt, the only photograph of my my mother had was one taken at the beach during a summer vacation. I was walking back up from the ocean to our umbrella and towel demarked piece of the beach and saw her pointing the camera at me. I quickly put the inflatable raft I'd been using in front of me, giving her a photograph of the blue raft, my ankles and feet.

Yesterday I wrote that I still see myself, in my mind's eye, at about 22 or so, and how it's still a shock to not see that younger face whenever I look in the mirror. It's a big part of why there are so few current photos of me that either don't have a camera covering most of my face or have me obscured by... something. (psychedelics, hair, my hand while I'm sleeping, etc)

I'm sure I'll get over it one day. Eventually.

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