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I just looked at some old Facebook pictures and simultaneously wondering what I was thinking. Clearly the fashion filter hadn’t formed yet. Clearly I didn’t get the memo about how to do my makeup. And clearly maturity levels were not at their peak. And people wonder why I don’t miss high school.

There are SO MANY pictures from high school. Sarah and I were obsessed with them. It was as if every time we hung out resulted in an entire Facebook album of us in the same place, doing forty different facial expressions, thinking we were so cool. The more tags on Facebook, the better. We were in love with pictures and yet there are hardly any good ones. We kept trying and trying and the result was odd, explanation-necessary photos at best; horrifyingly embarrassing poses/fashion/facial expressions at worst.

I’m moving on because dwelling on it isn’t helping anything.

My parents have gotten…weird. They’re different than they used to be in August before I left for school. They are as lovey-dovey as the eighty engaged couples I know. My dad will walk in the room and my mom gets all excited and goes to give him a hug. They kiss all the time. They have these weird inside jokes that no one gets and doesn’t try to. Something has happened to them…I’ve never seen them like this in my twenty-one years. And I’m realizing that empty-nester syndrome is creeping in on them, and things are bound to get worse. I never really saw my parents in love, and now I’m seeing it and it’s weird and making me a little uncomfortable.

But they deserve this. After 25 years of selflessness, diapers, carpools, lunch-packing, and penny-pinching, they’re finally back in love. And they didn’t even try. It just…happened.

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m not ready to go back to school. I’m not ready for life to move on. I’m…really happy with what is happening, and I don’t want things to change. I’m not ready for some of my best friends to graduate, I’m not ready for facing up to reality, I’m not ready for life. I liked life as it has been for the past few weeks: movies, sleeping, friends, long talks and deeper friendships, longer runs, reading, praying, and more movies. And I spent all last semester wishing life would hurry up and now I just want to pause and take it all in. I just want to stop and take so many pictures.

But I think my need to pause is kind of like my old obsession with photos. Pausing as much of life as possible, trying to capture the beauty of now, striving to capture it all that I forget to live. I am too stuck on pausing and cherishing that I forget to look forward to the future…in fact I dread it.

I’ve learned from my old photo fetish that the good pictures just happen. They aren’t in a Facebook album of fifty different facial expressions. They aren’t found when I get a picture with every person in the room. The best ones are taken spur of the moment, without warning or planning or elaborate staging. They happen while I’m living, not posing.

And I think all of life is like that. Whether re-falling in love with your husband, approaching the next step in life, or learning something new, it happens when we aren’t striving for it. And certainly not when we’re paused, waiting for some great picture that we all know will turn out embarrassing anyway.

So I guess I will enjoy it all and let life move. I won’t pause and hold on tightly to what I have or where I am, in a desperate attempt to make it last forever. Because there will be some good pictures taken, I don’t have to worry about that.

And maybe the best things in life aren’t the pictures we took, they are the things waiting ahead of us if we choose to put down the pictures and start living. 

And thank God for that. I'm so glad that this wasn't the best life got.