Oh, memories

I threw out the ones of myself that were blurry, stuck together or just undeniably unflattering. Because, ya know, it's my photo box, and I can keep my memories of myself slightly more attractive than they were in real life.

See, some of those photos in that box are good photos, but come with invisible photo credits under them. For example: "Oh, here's that sticky July night when the Ex and I first broke up and got back together. For all that dramatic crying and humidity, my hair looks really good"; "I remember that one, of all those guys filling their red Solo cups in Columbus our freshman year of college. Five minutes later in this photo series comes this one of the Ex throwing up all over himself"; "Ah, yes, I kind of, sort of, maybe blew off some plans with a 'cough, cough' lie to go to this party. But those angel wings look totally awesome."

Good times.

Anyhow, I wasn't sure what to do with all those photos of the College Ex. When I was in high school I had a plastic, gallon-sized bucket full of photos; half of which I could've dumped when I dumped the other halves of the photos' subjects. But someone I worked with stopped me as I piled them up sloppily to toss out; she said I'd regret it later in life.

I'm not really sure what her reasoning was but I listened, and kept most of them.

The College Ex is kind of different; I mean, that's four years of prime, young, photogenic times in my life. Siiiigh. It's not like I display them throughout my house or leave them lying in places where I'd find them often. I only come across them when I'm on one of my three-hour-long organizational binges (some choose food, I choose containers and labels).

So, tonight I segregated them into piles of Him and Me and Him, Me and Others.

I kept The Others' pile. The other pile ... I don't know, what do you do with those?? I ended up putting them in the way-back of the box, under good-times photos. I'll forget they're even there after tomorrow. But still. Next time I need to organize, I'm going to be debating this again.

But I will say one thing. I ripped up the photos of my-uncomfortable-self and His Nearest and Dearest -- all of which portray my smile as less "yay, this is fun" and more "I swear to all that is holy that if I have to come over here one with these schmoes one more night, I will not be responsible for my actions."

And that makes me happy. See?! It's like those hundreds of nights never happened. My 2002 self would've found this moment very comforting. It's too bad I couldn't go back in time and whisper "Erin, woman, hang on. Someday you'll get to stay home and watch reruns like you want to now. I promise. Five years from now is looking up!"