"I found an old baby picture of me. And it was somebody else. Not me."
Jessie Cates from 'Night Mother by Marsha Norman
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"What happens to us when we grow up? What happens to our childhood, our pure innocence?
I looked at old photos of myself, and I realised that I didn't recognise the little girl whose smile beamed out of her soul, like rays of sunlight. That little girl grew into an older one, a girl who learnt to hate and mistrust the lying world. Doubt and anger seeped into the very core of her soul.
I may as well have killed that little girl. She still haunts me; I can see her if I smile. But when I reach out a hand to touch her, my fingers meet nothing but cold glass.
Yes I did kill her, and reduced her to a ghost that exists only in empty memories that lurked behind mirrors.
I hate her and her smile."
Author's Comments
I did exactly that. I looked at old photos of myself to get into character for Drama, and I couldn't recognise myself at all. I guess I grew up.
Written by me, 28 March 2008
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That was how I felt when I went through my childhood photos just a few months ago.
I looked at the pretty little girl with dark hair and eyes and saw a complete stranger. I read her diaries and for one brief second, I wondered who wrote them, until I recognized the blue ( I don't even use a blue pen anymore ) handwriting as my own. She always had this bright happy smile that I can't imitate. (Not that I want to...) She seemed so happy and carefree.
That girl existed for eight years. Then the most recent photo, taken when I was 9 or 10. When I showed people my photos, they flicked through it, with constant exclamations of "Are you sure this is you?" Then they got to the last photo (I arranged the photos in chronological order) and they sigh and go "Now this I can recognize."
Why? That photo was taken when I was 9 or 10, and that was the only photo where the girl is not smiling. She is recognizable as the same girl in the previous photos, but she's not the same. The happiness seems to be drained out of her somehow, and the light is gone from her eyes.
It's only then you see that the girl looks like me.
