The Weight of Time

How the Past Shapes Our Present

What Does It Take to Feel Alive?

I asked that question last week, and I've been wrestling with it ever since. Life has a funny way of bringing you face-to-face with the very things you're trying to figure out. Right after I hit "publish" on that post, I found myself in a situation that kicked my insecurities into high gear, proving that the universe has a sense of humor, or maybe a lesson it wants me to learn.

I've been working on some new business content and decided I needed an updated headshot. For the last five years, I've taken all my own portraits. It's a bit of a dance, just me and my camera in the basement. It's not easy, but the alternative would be having someone else look at my face the way I do in Photoshop, and that feels terrifying. So, I'm the artist and the subject, a one-woman show.

This time, though, I decided to try something different. I took my favorite self-portraits from the past few years, ran them through an AI photography app, and created a new version of myself. It looked like me, but better, a retouched, polished version. I, of course, had to put it into Photoshop and do a few more tweaks. I posted it on Facebook, not thinking much of it, and then the comments started rolling in. They were all so kind, but with every "Wow, you look amazing!" and "So beautiful!", a new wave of imposter syndrome washed over me.

I felt like a fraud. I've been a photographer for a long time. I know the game. I've spent countless hours retouching other people's faces, smoothing out wrinkles, and erasing blemishes. I know professional photos aren't a true representation of who we are. Yet, when I applied that same logic to myself, the imposter syndrome hit me like a ton of bricks. My face, the one I try to avoid in the mirror, was now a public AI-generated lie.

And now I continue to question myself, what do I really look like to other people? How do they actually see me as opposed to how I see myself? Do they see every little line? Do they criticize the age that is slowly creeping in and the way I look? Why does time create so many insecurities?

Chasing Time and Memories

This whole experience got me thinking even more about time, that recurring theme I keep bringing up. The reality that time has become more tangible, more urgent. My dad, who has been battling bladder cancer for almost two years now, just had to restart his treatments once again last week. It's a stark reminder that time is not infinite, and it makes me want to grasp at all the moments I can with my parents, my sister, and with all of the things I still want to accomplish.

I know I am isolating myself from the world right now, but I'm always busy. I blink, and a week has vanished. They say that's a good thing for a creative, a sign you're in the flow. But I worry about the disconnect. I've built this comfortable little world at home, my cozy little sanctuary, and the more I stay, the less I want to leave. It's in this solitude that my thoughts wander, they grow, and they explore. Lately, I go back to my childhood, to the innocence of that young, naive, and confused little girl I once was.

Growing up, my Grandma Pearl was the one person I could really talk to. She could tell just by looking at me when I had a question bottled up inside. Living so far out in the country meant there weren't a lot of other kids around. I spent most of my time outside by myself. My little sister was four years younger, and that felt like a huge age gap when I was a pre-teen, so we fought a lot. Looking back, I'm pretty sure I was the problem. I was probably a little too much of a know-it-all.

I was a kid filled with wonder, always trying to figure out the world around me. I spent most of my time exploring the woods behind my house, writing my thoughts in journals under the swaying pine trees. Even though I was alone, I felt a deep connection to what I called God, and I talked to him constantly. It was a time of deep thinking about who I was. The worries I had back then were a lot like the ones I have now, only instead of being about time, they were about the great big mystery of the unknown.

Time is such a funny thing. We're always racing against the clock or waiting for something to happen. It's hard to just be in the “now,” like the author Eckhart Tolle talks about. Maybe we just made up the idea of time to keep us from giving up or getting too lazy. I used to say I was comfortable in the most uncomfortable moments. Now I wonder, what does that even mean

Thinking about my dad this week, knowing he was back in cancer treatment, brought back so many memories of us at the lake when I was a kid. Those little moments we shared really made me who I am today. There's a running joke I have that my dad was trying to get rid of me. It sounds terrible, I know, but it is all in good fun. In our family, my sister is definitely Dad's favorite, and I'm Mom's. I think she'd agree!

We had a little john boat with a hole in it that would slowly fill with water. When my dad got home from work, I was allowed to go out and fish near the shore as long as I wore a life jacket. I would bail it out every 30 minutes with a little bucket, always afraid the boat would sink. My dad showed me how to mix a fiberglass solution and brush it over the holes, but it never really fixed the problem.

Then there was the mini bike Dad brought home. My sister and I were so excited, we took turns riding it around the yard until one day the handlebars just fell off! Luckily, nobody got hurt, and we still laugh about it. That wasn't the only crazy ride he gave us. One Christmas, he built me a go-kart from scratch, welding every piece together. He custom-painted it white with red pinstriping, and it was a masterpiece. The only problem was that he painted the brake pedal, which stiffened the spring. I wasn't strong enough to push the pedal spring all the way down. I could slow it down, but I couldn't stop it completely. My sister and I would drag our feet on the ground from the side to stop. I wore out the tread on my left sneaker, and she did on her right, but it was totally worth it.

My dad's creations were always a little… custom. A little bit of a conglomeration. He built my first bike with a big, fat tire in the back, a high "trombone" back to lean on while sitting in the curved white banana seat. It was pretty ugly, but definitely one-of-a-kind. At the time, I didn't appreciate the significance of something built with such care and love. I just wanted what my friends had, something new and polished seemed cool. Now, I'd give anything to see those early creations again.

It's strange how many of our memories just get lost without a picture to remind us. For earlier generations, most of those memories live only in our heads. But kids today can save their childhood memories for generations to come. With smartphones, every minute can be saved, from the silliest moments to the most serious. Times are so different now. A story can literally travel across the world and make an impact.

Going back in time, consider the dangers we lived through. We rode in the back of trucks down the highway without a care in the world. We drank water from a nasty, moldy hose on hot summer days. Boys shot at each other with BB guns and slingshots. We rode bikes without helmets and skateboarded without pads. All our toys had tiny pieces that were easy to swallow, and remember those crazy lawn darts? With all the time that's passed, and with technology, we're so much more aware of the dangers. That has changed everything.

My mom recently told me she feels like a bad mom for letting me paddle around the lake alone as a kid. That's a true sign of how much things have changed. Many of the things from our past could have led to big trouble today. Those same stories could now lead to online shaming, people getting "canceled," or even legal issues. Back then, time disappeared as soon as it passed. There was no lasting judgment or social media buzz. We didn't have the kind of fear that seems to be everywhere now.

The Threads That Connect Us

All of my childhood experiences, the leaky boat, the go-kart with no brakes, they are a part of me. They taught me resilience and a certain kind of resourcefulness. They are threads woven into the fabric of my life, not defining me but shaping me. It makes me wonder if our past, good or bad, is the compass that guides us in our adult lives. How we internalize those early experiences obviously becomes a part of who we are later as adults.

Maybe the lessons over time are meant to help us learn. Perhaps they keep coming back to us, circling until we finally get it. Maybe the answer to feeling alive isn't in what we do, but in how we look back and appreciate the journey. Perhaps it's in recognizing that the beauty is not in the perfectly new, but in the custom-made, imperfect, and wholly unique things that make us who we are.

I'm still a work in progress, still trying to find my way back to feeling alive. But I have these memories, these stories, and these moments of clarity that remind me of where I came from. And maybe, just maybe, that's enough to keep going.

Have you ever felt this way about your past? How have your childhood memories, or even your present struggles, shaped the person you are today?

I'd love to hear your story. ❤️