Pictures

Frozen moment in time. Smiles, fake and genuine. One story told, a dozen others hidden. What lurks behind that momentary happiness? A time when someone was more than they are now. It's impossible to predict where their paths will end. You only wish that you could return to the time when everything was simpler. Known. The moment in that picture. A moment seen through objective lens, captured by an unfeeling camera. You wish you were as happy as that picture made you look. A frozen moment of joy that in unfortunate reality may not have even been genuine in its capture. What use is nostalgia? What use is the longing for a time that now only exists on a 4x7 piece of paper, an evocation of tears? I look at my wall of pictures and I think, these are the people who made me. I owe them for who I am, and who I want to be. I can't fail them. Yet, they are already so different from the people they were in those pictures. I am so different. My dreams aren't, but my life is. That's what happens to so  many people: life. How do I keep life from robbing me too? How do I remain the smiling face in that picture? What happens if I never become the successful person they saw in the me in that picture? What happens if I become less than what I was then? Will they still love me like they did when we took that picture together? Will they still be here? Will I still be here? Or, will I be stuck in a longing for the past?