A new friend of mine asked me the other day why I don't post my photos on Facebook. I told him that I am a private person and so I don't like sharing my life with 'friends' that I don't even know. I also told him that lately I don't log on to Facebook often enough to upload photos. He accepted my reasons as legitimate and so we quickly changed the topic of our conversation.
Later that day on my way home, I remembered that conversation and I realized that my answer was not entirely true. I tried to remember the last time I took a photo of myself and the realization that it has, in fact, been several months shocked me. For a moment there I almost regretted having not taken a photo of my everyday life to show my transformation from a teenage girl to a young woman. Then I remembered how hypocritical and phony photos are and I instantly felt better that I didn't have images of me in a counterfeit pose, fictitious smile( that I worked too hard to make it appear real) in a very spurious background all over cyber space.
Well, I pushed that conversation out of my conscious thoughts though honestly, it was skirting at the periphery of my subconscious begging my attention. And so today, at the ungodly hour of 3 am, while catching up with some reading, I had what Oprah would call an A-HA moment. The (real) reason why I don't take photos of me every fleeting moment is because I have always wanted words. And that probably explains why I religiously write on my journal every single day. Its like I need something that will remind me of my glorious youth without the indecision and hypocrisy of taking a photo. I need something authentic that I can hang on to. And words do exactly that. While a photo will show only a facade of what's on the outside, words have a way of stripping me naked and bring to surface every fleeting emotion, forcing me to acknowledge each emotion as valid.
That sudden realization explains some of my idiosyncracies, like the fact that I firmly believe that every moment of silence should be filled with music; and not just music but music with meaningful lyrics. And this goes on to explain why I only have to listen to a certain song and the memories will come right back, and with so much intensity. Or the fact that every available free time I have will find me devouring words, whether mine or other people's, and trying to relate them to my life at the moment. And it also explains why I always wonder what I do with my hands when I don't have a book with me. I guess the hedonist in me has always demanded that I have to want and need words.
