Day Fifty-One, 2025

 Pictures

I am not a fan of having my picture taken.

I have the awkward frown-smile when I 'pose' - stems from not wanting to show my teeth.  In the back of my mind when taking pictures I'm always back in grade 6, forgot it was picture day, showed up in my favourite Cotton-Ginny black t-shirt hair in a messy pony tail, no make-up (grade 6 remember), nike air shoes and jeans.   On re-take day and I must have missed the first day.

That day in grade 6 I smiled like I meant it and honestly there is joy in my eyes in the photo but it was not the model that I wanted to be.  The pretty girl.  I was a bit of a tom boy and I looked in the mirror in the morning but really didn't care much about what others thought.  I read a lot of books (think sweet valley high and babysitters club not ... other authors - totally drawing a blank on what else I should have thought to read...lol), slept not much and just threw clothes on before leaving the house.

My mum bought and framed that picture.  She saw the joy in it I guess, not wanted to humiliate - and every time I saw it I thought less of myself.  

Comparing myself to the popular girl who lived in my building and up until grade 6 we were friends at both home and school but she stopped talking to me at school.  Plus all the other little things that I haven't thought of in years that made me feel like I was less than the others.  

While I'm digging in my brain I think that comparison is one of the reasons I moved in with my dad for grade seven - new town and an opportunity to start fresh, maybe even be the 'cool girl from the city'.  Side note, that plan didn't work.  Unfortunately I'm a little competitive and didn't let the popular girl win in a race where I was unknowingly becoming chesty.  I won that race, got heckled by dumb boys, started trying to skip gym, then later planned my birthday party which had low turnout of nice people because that same girl threw a party for the exact same Saturday (even though she was invited to my party) swear I didn't steal this from a movie lol.  Let's just say that year continued to spiral while I worried where my plan to be better in this new place had gone wrong.

Point of this whole thing is I am uncomfortable in posed pictures.  I don't practice like I probably should.  I take pictures of family and mainly forget about pictures (thank goodness for J) so I can 'live in the moment' but I have a crappy memory so I remember just about nothing after it's past.  Small backfire.

I should practice I guess.

The inspiration for this post is that a week ago today a woman at work took a picture of me after I relented my protest in front of a wall with Happy Birthday balloons on it.  I did not think she would then secretly send that unflattering photo to everyone in the company including our other office across the country.  Today I found out that the picture has been posted in the production area of our factory - this is SEVEN days later.  I am mortified and so angry at myself for not sticking to my decline for photo.  

The woman is the type who would text only me directly, after you've left work, the night before to tell you the dress code at a company dinner in a nice restaurant is ok for jeans.  After she's already emailed everyone no jeans and then comes in the next morning wearing heels, tight pants waving her hair around in full make up to see what I had shown up in.  I wore an appropriate dress under my sweater and jeans so she would think she had gotten me and, at the end of the day, when I said that 'even I know you can't wear jeans to The M********.' she didn't have much to say back to me.

I have experience with mean girls and I try not to be one in return but I don't take it laying down and cry anymore.  I protect myself from bullies and refuse to play dirty or engage in dumb combat.  I let them speak, question and request repeating when the slight is very blatant, both to acknowledge that I'm not a naive kid anymore and bullies should have to repeat certain things - so they can really hear themselves.

This feels like warfare and it's just stupid but I can't help being angry about it.  Why even bother creating drama when we could just work, be civil and go home to our families?

Also, what the HELL do I do about this picture that is floating around?

C

Action VS Grief