A look back

Do you ever look back at old pictures, I mean old pictures from 10+ years ago, of yourself and see you as a different person? Not like a different person personality wise. A different person like someone that is not you. 

I found myself sorting through some old stuff of mine at my parents house the other day and came across some old pictures of me in high school, me with ex boyfriends, and me as a small child. I looked at those and felt completely removed from the person I was looking at. I felt like it wasn't really me. It was of some one different. Someone who I never thought would give birth to her stillborn son. Someone who I never thought would be living the life she is today. 

I was never one who thought I would live to be in my twenties let alone now my thirties. I don't know why, I just thought as a teenager that I would die before then. Not because of my life style but because I just could never see that far into the future. 

I guess in a sense I did die.

I died at the ripe old age of thirty-two. 

I buried myself on May 9, 2011. My name is even on the wall to prove it. 

Except I'm not in there. 

Look over one more. There.

I'm in with my son.

Curled right around his little white casket. Holding tighter than I ever thought possible. 

I was dead for 1 year, 2 months, and 1 day. I knew I had to live when I gave birth to my daughter, my rainbow in a perfect storm. 

I still reside in that mausoleum with Sam, but a new me has appeared. I'm still trying to figure out who she is, but I do know that she is not the same girl in those pictures. She is not that same girl from a year ago or 2 years ago.

Looking at those pictures I see innocence, immaturity, possibilities, a journey.

Never did I think that person in those pictures was going to be me.