I used to think photographs are a curse. I never appeared nice on them until college when digital cameras which have adjustable settings sky-rocketed in the market and onto my friends’ belongings. Or was it adolescence which made things better?  My smiles then, all seemed like smirks and pouts against the foolishness of the narcissistic world, the world I felt inferior and resentful to belong in. Oh how hormones affect the brain!

So now, I present to you, our only family picture. Why the only? Simply because all families are dysfunctional in some way; and mine just had it normal like everyone else. The pattern of marriages breaking up despite the vow of ever-after, eternity, lifetime commitments and all that fun (or not), has dramatically increased; similar to the surge of  multitudes of new accounts created on Facebook and Blogger daily.

I would like to thank my second grade teacher for having assigned this task to us, a family tree.  Had it not been for you, Ma’am, I would have lived on and regretted, never having the opportunity to see my family, snugged next to each other, scared smiling and faces plastered on one smooth and immortalized paper. It was the best and worst of times encapsulated by one click at the shutter. And yet, that single moment, would always be the one kept and held closest to where every beat starts to throb. Christmases past, the fighting, the word wars… they no longer matter.

“What does my smile look like now? Vivi wondered. Can you reclaim that free-girl smile, or is it like virginity- once you lose it, that’s it?”
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)