Throwback Thursday

     If you're not on Facebook or Instagram (social networks on the internet), chances are you have no idea what "Throwback Thursday" a.k.a. "TBT" is. It's pretty self-explanatory: people post old pictures of themselves or really anything from their childhood. Usually, they are pretty good. That haircut your mom gave you in second grade--you know...the bangs? Oh, yeah. They're back. Remember when you had braces? So do all of your Facebook friends, thanks to TBT. You in your favorite overalls? PERFECT. The key to Throwback Thursay is to be able to laugh at yourself.
     Tonight, my mom pulled out some old photos for me to submit for our senior slideshow at graduation. Looking at old pictures is probably one of my favorite activities, ever. Snapshots can bring the almost forgotten memories back in a way that just talking about them can't. The pictures can send the rest of the story rushing back. Like when my sister blew out my birthday candles. Or I knocked out her tooth. In almost all of the pictures we tried to take as a family with matching sweaters--gotta love the 90s--my four-year-old fingers are always pinching my pants pockets. Suddenly, I could remember being in that moment, and I was looking up at everyone from my height of four feet tall, stomping on the fall leaves. I had been picking my nose in between shots and hiding the boogers in my pockets whenever we took pictures! (Why wasn't I just like every other kid my age, flicking them off and away instead?!) I even found these Polaroid pictures of one of my sisters riding on horses that appear to be wearing Mexican horse saddle pads. I have no recollection of this, but the randomness only magnifies the hilarity of it all.
     If you want to enjoy all the amusing, and preferably embarrassing, pictures of others, you have to be willing to pay it forward and post some of your own. You know you have some. Everyone has bubble bath pictures from when they were three years old. First-day-of-school pictures are always golden. You and your best friend from kindergarten playing dress up. That day your family tried to look all color coordinated and perfect, but you couldn't get a single good picture because you're not models in a Land's End catalog and one of the kids kept making faces. First dance in junior high--two words: hair gel. Those pictures you and your girlfriends took at 3:00 A.M. on a Saturday morning your freshman year? Yeah, you just go on and dig out those old photo albums from behind all those old coats in your closet. The "lost" pictures. Mmmhm. You'll thank me for this later when you're doubled over laughing, showing your kids, siblings, parents, or friends. Go ahead and throw it back this Thursday.
Always, Anna

P.S. Here was my most recent contribution. Beautiful family photo circa 1999. Caption was: "Throwing it back to when Karen was a serial killer." Best comment? "She'll KILL you for this!"