I like taking photos. I always have. I don't always like being in them because body issues and all kinds of fucked up excuses in my head. But I take them, and I will pose for selfies with someone most of the time. SelfieBeautyProject is a thing.
And of course, with the kind of headspin that makes the Exorcist look kinda lame, I have tried to figure out what I am supposed to do with all the photos I have of exes.
When my ex husband and I split, besides opening a bank account he had no access to, and reformatting the hard drive on our shared computer 12 different times to make sure that the chatroom (and the saved chats) he used to contact his girlfriend was no longer there, I also took care of our wedding photo. You know the one. The one in the crystal frame that was a wedding gift from some aunt. The one where you are staring into each other's eyes, wondering how lucky you got, dripping with happiness and promises. The one you had in an 8x10 color glossy, sitting on your shelf at eye level for guests to see the first millisecond they walked in. The one you burned, after smashing the frame into little shards with a sledge hammer dropped repeatedly in the bottom of the trash bin. That one. Twenty four years ago.
It was easier then. Photos were prints, and tangible, and semi-irreplaceable if you did not have the film negatives neatly sorted in binders to keep forever. There was one, maybe two of them to deal with, and you carefully put one print (maybe two, because the one with the puppy is just so sweet) into a box to never look at again. Or it will be years, and by then you will be okay.
When my children's father and I split, after babies and almost 11 years together, the photos were also easy to deal with. Sort them into the photos that had him in it, either digital or prints, pull them all onto a thumb drive and toss them in a box marked *save for H and M* and walk away. Do it once, don't destroy anything, but never look at it again. Keep all baby pics separate, and labeled, and I was good to go.
When my most recent partner and I split, part of the verbal vomit he threw at me was how he hated that I took selfies, and couples photos. This was news to me because while I knew he didn't particularly feel good in his body, and I had seriously curbed my public albums at his request, he smiled, kissed me, put his arms around me, and posed just the same anytime I asked.
So tonight, as I looked at the photos, I started to delete the albums from Facebook so they wouldn't wreck me showing up on my memories, and wondered what do I do with all these photos now? Because reality is they are fucking everywhere. They were on posts, and in my camera roll, and as part of cover photos and profile pics. They were backed up in my cloud storage on three different sites, and on my laptop hard drive. They were sorted with facial recognition software so I would never not be able to find them. One thousand, seven hundred and seventy three photos in the drive correctly labeled as him. Him leaning against his new car. Him at his desk at one of the six jobs he held in the last five years. Him on the couch. Him at dinner. Him in groups with my kids. Him with his mom, his daughter, his best friend, his brother. But (and this is a big but), one thousand, three hundred and eighty two of them are of him and me together. Nearly 1400 photos documenting our adventures, our togetherness, our lives. Seriously. Over,fucking,whelming.
So what the fuck do I do with them?
I have no reason to believe they will ever be wanted. Not by him for sure, and not yet for me. I can cruelly imagine all kinds of reasons for keeping them. Like for when he is indicted for fraud and murder in a very public trial and the news agencies want them, for large amounts of cash. Or maybe for the collage at his funeral after he is shot dead by some jilted mistress, or dead because of a fall from the balcony of his apartment that he was afraid to be on. Or maybe for one of his daughters because for the last five years the only photos taken at all were by me, and no one has any others.
Five years is a big enough chunk of time that I may want to keep the memories of MY trips, and MY outings, and MY love. I need to figure out a way to make this visual noise be quieter so that I can find MY life in there somewhere, but not have it feel so difficult, or so immediate. It is not like randomly finding a photo in an old box. I have to actively delete them on multiple platforms, while deciding what I value. Can I be okay with that great pic of the Lincoln Memorial with us standing together on the top step? What about the selfie at the Golden Gate Bridge, or from the window of the Rainbow Room? I was there. There is visual proof. He was there, too. Just as smiling, just as present. One thousand, three hundred and eight two times.
I pulled the photos labeled with his image into a folder marked "ex". I pulled the nudes I have of him into a sub folder in the secure folder (under password protection), also marked "ex". He probably won't be happy I am keeping those. I am okay with that, he has company.
What I really need to do is figure out how to smash the frame without cutting myself in the process. I need a different kind of sledge hammer this time because it won't be as easy to just burn the photo at the end, and there will be no accidental boxes to find that prompt nostalgia. Delete is so much more permanent. How much of me will be left? I am guessing a lot, since I still have ones of me in my wedding dress, and me with my babies, and me that day at the beach. Me. I still exist, and I am keeping the photos to prove it. Him maybe not so much.
I might actually print a couple of me just because.
