Raspberry Iced M

The pictures hanging on my walls sometimes make me sad.

They’re arranged carefully. Intentionally. As if balance could somehow soften history.

A beach trip in 2021 – sunburned noses, wind-whipped hair, and everyone squinting at the same invisible horizon.

Christmas morning in 2017 – wrapping paper mid-explosion, coffee forgotten on the counter, and joy so loud it almost vibrates through the frame’s glass covering.

Back to school selfies in 2014 – stiff smiles and nervous hands and the kind of pride that sits high in your chest.

If you walked through my house, you would think I have lived a charmed life.

And I have.

But that’s part of what makes it ache.

The sadness isn’t reminiscent of the moments themselves. The moments were real, the laughter genuine, and the love emanating.

But each frame feels like a time capsule sealed shut. A reminder that whatever lived inside that day is unreachable now.

And the girl in the beach picture didn’t know then what she would break.

The mother on Christmas morning didn’t know how quickly mornings would change.

The woman sitting straight-backed against the park bench thought she had more time – more time to get it right, more time to fix what needed fixing, more time to be better before anyone noticed she was trying.

Yet time did what it does.

It moved.

Even if the walls stayed still.

Sometimes I stand in the middle of the living room, scanning longer than necessary. I trace the edges of the colorful frames with my eyes – memorizing expressions, postures, and the space between bodies.

In a few of them, I easily recognize where I could have chosen differently.

I see impatience behind a smile. Distraction behind celebration. An apology that should’ve come sooner.

Regret is a quiet companion. It doesn’t shout. It whispers. You should’ve cherished that more. You should’ve protected that better. You should have been softer.

And I should’ve.

In that same quiet regret, I am slowly learning.

The pictures are proof of love, not perfection.

They don’t document the arguments that followed, doors that closed, words that landed wrong. They capture moments when everyone was aligned – arms around each other, eyes crinkled, standing close enough to count as belonging.

The fact that I can look at them and feel pain means I cared.

It means it mattered.

There are still empty spaces on my walls. Blank metaphorical squares where frames could hang. Vacancies I am still not sure how to fill.

But the walls themselves still stand – and are solid.

And so am I.

I can’t step back into those photographs. I can’t re-parent, re-say, re-do. I can’t warn the heavy-chested woman in the Christmas photo that life is more fragile than she thinks.

But I can stand here – older, quieter, and humbled – and decide what kind of pictures I want to take next.

Not perfect ones.

Just honest ones.

Maybe someday the sadness won’t hit first.

Maybe I’ll look at those sweet faces – grinning by the pool – and feel gratitude instead of longing. Maybe I’ll see that even with the mistakes, even with the fractures, love existed there. A love that wasn’t erased by what followed, but instead, a love that simply changed shape.

The pictures hanging on my walls sometimes make me sad.

But they also remind me that the humans in them once stood together and smiled.

And that means, at least once, I got it right.

Even if only for the length of a camera flash.