other people post this stuff...i wanna too

i have lots i could say. as always. but i also have a kid to pick up in an hour and a class to teach in 90. so, i'll try to keep it quick...

i found the above photo last night and thought it'd be a cool thing to share. it's me, holding me, taken on my android phone. i saw things last night that i had never seen and felt feelings i hadn't felt in so many years, if ever, and it was all because of photos and writings...just simple pictures and words. children's book basics. i felt a connection that i hadn't felt before with both my own personal history and my families history, as a whole (we're goin' back generations here, folks). i felt overpowering love and warmth and i felt deep sadness as i witnessed the love and warmth and consequently, innocence fade all over again. seeing my life, years forgotten, though photographs, made me understand why, as an older child, i used to work so hard to not make memories. i hated going places, doing things, enjoying myself--all because it made good memories...and after seeing, in my eyes, the innocent happiness before things got ugly...i understood why i had become such a 'prickly' child over time.

so, i sit. and i think. and i genuinely hold no grudges or resentment or anger. i just hold the key. i hold a key to making sure my child, and my future child(ren), never become, 'prickly'. i have left when things became too much, because that's what i knew. i hold no anger toward myself for doing that but i do hold, again, a key to make a change with and grow forward with. happiness has been a scarier emotion for me throughout my life than sadness or resentment, because those feelings are feelings i'd been accustomed to. happiness was random and would fade, so i never attached myself to it...or, well, i used to think i never attached myself to it but after seeing my eyes, 25-30 years ago, through photographs, i know it's there and that light has helped me KNOW that what i feel in my bones, my positivity, my happiness...is deep rooted in my soul...not the sadness or resentment that i sometimes feel like i am supposed to feel because that's normal. honestly, i couldn't live those feelings if i tried.

okay...i need to head to get my kid and then to teach a class...i'm sure i'll touch on all this again. and i'm sure i'll get back to my nonsensical ramblings just as fast but i'm here and i had to write something...