Creative Writing : Ten Year Photo

Part of My Non-Fiction Creative Writing Assignment

Photographs have a habit of piling up in the closet with a promise that they will be filed in a photo album later. Years go by and the stack grows until you can’t open the closet without pieces of the past falling to the floor. It’s strange how many of those photos become pointless, holding no memory and leaving you to question, “Why the hell did I photograph this?” I shuffled through the One Hour Photo packets, some of them over 10 years old. It is strange that although it only took one hour to develop the photos, it took me 10 years to actually look at them. I looked at places that were meaningless to me. Random trees, a bike path and old worn shoes. One after the other, I threw them in the trash and wondered why I wasted so much film. I paused at the last picture. It was me, younger. My hair was a bright blonde, short and stuck to the sweat on my face. It must have been summer because the trees were a bright green and my skin looked sunburned. I was on my bike and my arm reached out of the photo, I had taken it myself. Click. It was the time I ran away, convinced that I could live on my own. I thought I could survive on two peanut butter sandwiches, an apple, and a diet coke forever. But the sun started to set and I was afraid. I rode on the bike path in the woods and went home. I put the photo aside on my desk, wondering what would have happened if I had brought a flashlight.