The younger you in you
A reflective photo essay.
It’s weird looking at old pictures of yourself in your childhood, teens, and adolescence. It’s a nostalgia tainted with deep insecurities. The type conjured by watching shows such as PEN15, a pain body of your inner child that you try not to touch for those were trying times.
I’m visiting my Mom and stepdad’s house in Houston for the holidays. There’s something about visiting your parents as an adult that instantaneously makes you reflect on your upbringing, sometimes, well mostly, subconsciously — and especially during the holidays, which is already a hard time for many.
Long story to say, I caught that nostalgia bug, but it was not in my own doing this time. Something or someone led me there. I was in the garage looking for workout gear. Instead, I picked up a photobook. However, I noticed a picture of my great-grandmother viewable as a lone photo in the same large clear bag that the photobook was in.
This past year has been a spiritual year. I’ve felt her soft soul from the ancestral realm carrying me. All of our ancestors do. It starts with reverence, healing, and grief. Grief tethers you to a non-material realm. It is the interior. The way your heart sinks, the sways of your body, clinches of your jaw, a sadness with a smile. Mixed with the possibilities of remembrance. Remembering. Remembering who you are. I felt grief as I opened the photobook.
This photo is of my 8th grade graduation.
Eyes forward. Posture slightly tilted, shoulders forward — a quiet kid.
But I did the graduation speech that year. I won a speech writing contest, and I remember saying to myself, why not? I could do anything. The speech was a hit.
In the speech, I incorporated references from the movie Friday but also sprinkled in hints of inspiration for what was next at this pivotal liminal moment of our youthful lives.
At my Jesuit high school, we couldn’t have facial hair, but my goatee was my middle finger to the institutional rules and policies reliant on controlling the body.
With a slight grin and attempted joyful simple. I was happy to get out of here; it’s embodied in my posture and slight sway in my walk.
My ears are also pierced, which you can’t see in the photo.
I was going through some deep, hidden shit. You can see it in my eyes in photos. I didn’t want to share what I didn’t know I was feeling. I quit football and had deep insecurities about myself, my abilities, and my achievements.
I’m proud of him.
I wore a famous Marcus Garvey t-shirt quote to my high school graduation party.
I dreamed of liberation. My spirit was ancestral. I dared to speak truth to power, not as a form of resilience but as an expression. I often saw clothes and how I dressed as a form of embodied self-expression.
My freshman college roommate had two pairs of shoes. One pair of tennis shoes, one pair of boots.
I’m reminiscing about my shoe game. This is a pain I didn’t even know I held. Look at your old collection of favorite shoes or clothes you no longer have, and let me know if you also feel that pain comes with the loss. It’s even worse if you don’t remember the last wear.
Each pair triggers specific memories. I loved those chukkas, the classic high tops, and the Bo Jacksons. Damn, I really wish I could still wear some of those again today.
The back of the shirt reads or says something like “Dissent.”
The choice of shirt was a strategic one, given the itinerary of the day. I’m sure the gazes were crazy, but it was freedom. My truth. That has carried me on till today. As I transform into a critical leader for social justice, I dissent but dream of possibilities.
I may have held grief before opening the photobook, but now I feel a sense of relief by touching the clean pain of my inner child. Your younger you’s that live through you.
I hope that they’re proud.
I hope you’re proud of who you’ve become and are becoming.
Open an old photo book.
Touch, see, and smell the past parts of yourself that make you who you are. Go down the journey. It can be healing. But most of all, it reminds you of who you were and are becoming.
