Jeff and I were looking through old pictures of ourselves for our wedding slideshow and found some hilarious similarities in our respective photo journals. My favorite pose-- hands on hips-- was part of the repertoire of of both of our photographic pasts. The pose is the same, but it has very different meanings for these two little kids. My pose is part of an overall expression that exudes eager little girl who has a staring-straight-at-the-camera earnestness. This is an early flourish of the "like me - like me - PLEASE" people pleaser I was well on my way to becoming. I don't really look much like I am thinking. I look like I am trying. Trying really hard to look cute or to mug for the camera or to win the love of the photographer. My habits of trying to garner love and approval started early and they started strong.
Jeff's, on the other hand, is a pose I see probably 17 times per week. This is Jeff's signature "I am taking a survey of what is going down" pose. He's thinking. He's deciding whether the kids in the sandbox are putting the sand in the pails in the most efficient way. He's analyzing whether it's best for him to join in the sandbox project by actually getting in the sandbox or by remaining outside of the sandbox and performing more of a foreman's role. I saw this very pose last night when we were putting those little felt pads on some new bookshelves and a media center we just got. I was a little confused about how we were going to put those little felt circles on the bottom of a bookshelf that was already full of books and pictures and a delux Scrabble set, but Jeff figured out a way to jigger the shelves by propping them up on cookbooks and now our new furniture has ceased to make grooves in the wood floors every time we scoot it around.
Purusing old pictures is a really profound experience. On the one hand I can remember many of the pictures taken of me, but it can still be hard to recognize myself in them. In some pictures of myself I remember feeling fat or ugly or sad, but the picture doesn't show a me that looks fat, ugly or sad. It's strange to see how tender and fresh-faced I looked in college, which was a sort of tumultuous time for me on the inside. I feel a little fear when I see how great a disparity existed between my insides and my outsides. One of my thoughts was what if my daughters look this "normal" or "healthy" or "pretty," but are actually in pain, how will I know? Then, I thought, "Geez, I spent all that time worrying if I was pretty or skinny and I was perfectly fine." It's kind of hard to swallow how much time I have wasted on all things self: doubt, pity, hate, loathing. I could have had another major for all the energy I squandered picking myself apart. Maybe the best amends I can make to the Christie of the 1990s is to live today so I don't have to look back and feel sad I hated on myself when I was really doing ok.
And those old pictures of Jeff! Whoa. It's a little strange to see a baby picture of your fiance when he was dressed in a jump suit embroidered with a lady bug and curly hair. If Jeff had a sister, I would swear some of his pictures were of her. (I have no room to talk, there was more than one era when I was doing my own gender bending!)
Of course I know in theory that Jeff had a long life before me. Long-- as in about 3 decades. But to really see his past in all its 1970s and 1980s glory makes Jeff seem even more three-dimensional than before I found out he was a seriously fat baby. I can't even recognize the Jeff I know today with his baby pictures-- I can't see my Jeff until he's about 12.
From looking at the pictures, I imagine today's Jeff as a man who has all of those little boys inside himself-- the soccor and baseball player, the kid eating ice cream and pizza with his brother, or sitting on Grandma Ann's lap-- all of those little incarnations of Jeff live on in the man I will marry soon enough. And I carry the little people pleaser in the yellow dress, the chubby baby at Padre Island, and the little girl dressed up like Holly Hobby in the backyard-- they are all alive and well inside of me.
And here's the most amazing part. I have always heard that getting married (or into an intimate relationship) can heal wounded parts inside of myself. Now, I know it's true for me. I can see every single picture of Jeff and love each part, each age, and each expression. It's easier now to have the same love for myself-- even when I had that unfortunate too-short hair cut and would only wear overalls. Now that I have the capacity to love all of Jeff, it's a smaller challenge to spread it around. Even to myself.
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