Damn. I wanted to post a photo today - a real, tangible photo from a real, tangible photo album, but I can't find it. The album, I believe is in a box on the basement. When we moved three years ago, the stager we hired to fluff up our old house for sale had us store or dispose of any evidence that we actually lived in our house, so all the personal knick-knacks went into storage. It worked. We sold our house to someone who had no idea we actually lived there, and when we moved into this place, we took all the boxes from the storage locker and put them in the darkest, scariest recess of our dark and scary basement, and there they have languished to this day.
I did go down and rummage around a bit, and I realize I have a monumental task ahead of me. There are thousands of photos, and they are in no particular order. There are photos from my childhood and John's mixed up together, along with our yearbooks and report cards (mine far more impressive, I might add). There are boxes of photos taken during relationships with other men. Mine, I might add. Before John, I should also add. And all pretty much safe for work, I will also add. There are few pictures of John's ex-girlfriends except a couple in which I cut their heads out. There are lots of pictures taken during the early years of our life together where we are ridiculously a) young, b) skinny and c) addicted to nicotine. There are scads of wedding pictures, for which we paid a king's ransom, yet never framed not displayed (the only framed wedding picture was a candid shot taken by a guest). There are dozens of publicity shots (mine - engineers rarely give out 8X10 glossies). There are photos of trips, of parties, of friends, some long forgotten, others sorely missed. And hundreds and hundreds of photos of adorable little boys. Ours. Swimming and jumping and laughing and sleeping and doing somersaults and riding tricycles and blowing out birthday cakes.
It's going to take me a long time to go through these.