My sister found it in a box of old photos in Dad's attic. It's a picture of me, circa nineteen-eighty-something, out on the lake, sporting a mullet and clutching a Miller Lite. I'm certain there was a Marlboro just outside the camera shot - I wouldn't have had a beer in one hand without having a cig in the other.
This picture is by far one of the funniest snapshots of my entire life.
It's also one of the saddest.
Unlike most of my friends, who reserved this sort of thing for letting their hair down on a random weekend from time to time...this was me, all the time. Party girl, drinking and smoking and yelling or singing, telling profoundly dirty jokes and chasing boys (many of whom were running the other direction. Can you blame them?)
Was I funny? The life of the party? A trip, a blast, a really good time? Absolutely! I had so much fun, it nearly killed me. But...was I happy?
Never mind - rhetorical question.
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Another question, less rhetorical... should I be ashamed of that season in my life?
Honestly, I don't think so.
However, there was a time up until recently, where I would've begged Kim to shred or burn this picture, or at least hide it where it would never again see the light of day. And I would never - EVER - have put it on Facebook.
What if my boss ever sees it, or my colleagues at work? What about my pastor or my Sunday School class, my kid's principal...or, oh Lord, what about my KIDS?!!? I've tried to become someone my kids could look up to, and now I'm going to let them see this?
Why yes. Yes I am.
I pray regularly that my children don't choose to venture down some of the roads I once traveled. Not because it would hurt or embarrass me, but because there is nothing to be found there other than bitterness and despair. You can't see that from the head of the trail, which is why it is so important to listen to others who've been there and made their way back.
But if they are anything like me, deaf to wisdom and blind to what they don't want to see, then I hope they will remember this picture of their mom. Not as a cautionary tale or a finger-wagging admonition - more like a mile marker on a map, the beginning of a journey back out of the woods. A journey that can begin anytime, and for as many times as it takes.
Is this picture something I'm proud of? Lord no... and it's almost like those first thirty years of my life happened to somebody else.
But am I ashamed of it?
No - because, as Tolkien said, "not all who wander are lost". And I thank God for not letting me get completely lost during all that wandering... for taking my hand and leading me out of the lonely woods.
And besides... it is a REALLY funny picture.
