Last weekend, on impulse, I changed my Facebook profile picture to a photo from 2011. It's me, James, and Josh Thompson. I captioned it: "Throwback to 2011 when life meant something else."
I didn't think particularly hard about that sentence when I wrote it. It just kind of came out. I've been thinking about it ever since. Because I don't mean that life meant something then and doesn't mean anything now. I mean that everything meant something else.
Looking Back at Who We Used to Be
This picture is almost 15 years old. Fifteen years. That's such a weird amount of time because I can look at the woman in that picture and know exactly what it felt like to be her. But at the same time, I know things about her life that she couldn't possibly imagine.
Braxton wasn't even born yet. That's the one that really gets me. There isn't even a tiny baby Braxton somewhere in the world while we're standing there taking this picture. He isn't part of our story yet. We have no idea that someday we'll become parents. We don't know what it will take to get there. We don't know how hard we'll fight for that little family or how much it will eventually mean to us. We're just... there.
James is alive. I'm his wife. We're at the world-famous Dusty Armadillo in Rootstown, Ohio. I'm probably far more concerned about meeting Josh Thompson than contemplating the fragile nature of human existence. As one does.
We don't know what's coming. And I think that's what gets me about old photographs now. I know how the story goes. They don't.
Even the People in the Picture Became Someone Else
I've also been thinking about Josh Thompson lately, which is probably why I impulsively dug this picture out in the first place. There was a period of my life when I was a gigantic Josh Thompson fan. We even tweeted back and forth quite a bit, because apparently there was once a time when Twitter was mostly people casually yelling thoughts at each other instead of whatever it eventually became.
He still follows one of my ancient Instagram accounts, which feels like finding an archaeological artifact from another civilization. Now, all these years later, I occasionally come across his name somewhere completely different: in songwriting credits. One of my most-played songs lately is Jordan Davis's "Turn This Truck Around," which Josh co-wrote. And there's something strangely full-circle about that.
The guy standing in the middle of this picture went on living his life. His career changed. His work changed. He became a version of himself that the woman standing beside him didn't know yet. And so did I.
Sometimes I wonder what someone who knew me only during that tiny snapshot of my life would think if they stumbled across me now. Would they recognize me? Not physically. Obviously I'm still working with roughly the same face. I mean me.
The woman who owns the house. Raises her son. Goes to township meetings. Gardens. Fixes things. Writes a blog. Goes down completely unnecessary internet rabbit holes. Has strong opinions about old houses and thrift stores. Somehow keeps acquiring side quests. Would 2011 me recognize her? I'm not sure.
The Strange Thing About Becoming Someone New
Maybe that's one of the strangest things about getting older. We tend to think of ourselves as one continuous person. And technically, sure.
But I look at old pictures sometimes and see entire versions of myself. There was the me before James got sick. The me who was his wife.
The me before Braxton. The me who became a mother. The me who became a widow. And then there is whoever I am now. None of those women were fake versions of me. None of them disappeared completely.
They just knew different things. They wanted different things. They worried about different things. Life meant something else to them.
And maybe that's why nostalgia can feel so strange. Sometimes I don't necessarily want to go back. I just want to visit the person I was before I knew what happened next.
The Things We Couldn't Know Yet
When I look at that picture now, there are so many things I want to tell us. There are also things I absolutely wouldn't. Because what would be the point? Would knowing what was coming have made those years better? Or would it have stolen something from them?
There is a certain freedom in not knowing. The two people standing in that picture don't know that Braxton exists. They don't know that someday they'll become his parents. They don't know how much they'll love him.
They don't know that their time together has an ending. They don't know that one of them will eventually have to keep going without the other. They're just standing in a back lot of a honky-tonk, taking a picture with a country singer. And maybe that's enough.
Old Pictures Know Things We Don't
That's what photographs do. They freeze a moment without preserving any of the knowledge that comes afterward. The picture doesn't know what happens next. It doesn't know which ordinary days will eventually become precious. It doesn't know which people will still be here 15 years later. It doesn't know who we'll become.
We bring all of that with us when we look back.
Maybe that's why the exact same photograph can mean something completely different as the years pass. In 2011, this was a cool picture of us with Josh Thompson. Today, I look at it and see an entire world.
I see my husband. I see the woman I used to be. I see two future parents who don't even know their son exists yet. I see a musician whose work will somehow wander back into my life almost 15 years later. And I see three people standing there with absolutely no idea who they're going to become.
When Life Meant Something Else
The picture hasn't changed. We have. Or, in James's case, I have.
Maybe that's why old pictures can hit so hard. They preserve one second exactly as it was while everyone inside them keeps moving through time. Looking at that picture now, I know things the woman standing there couldn't possibly know. I know where some of those roads lead. I know which people stay. I know which people can't. I know she'll survive things she doesn't yet have language for. And I know she'll eventually build a life she'd barely recognize from where she's standing.
But I don't look at her and think her life meant more. And I don't look at myself now and think it means less. It just means something different.
Life didn't mean more then. It just meant something else.
