My mother is a self-proclaimed picture Nazi. There are over 100,000 pictures detailing almost every moment of my childhood, and thus countless pictures cover my bedroom walls, each encapsulating a different moment in my life with friends and family. While there are many ways I could group my photographs such as the people in the pictures, or the location in which they were taken, the most logical way to group my photographs is by age. My categories are: before preschool, pre-K and kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, freshman and sophomore year, and junior and senior year. The photographs follow my life growing up, the transitions, the awkward stages, and the people who have come and gone.

Like most, I do not have many memories from before I was in preschool, but I have endless photographs that basically give me the play-by-play of my first three years of life. In the majority of the photos, I am not even looking at the camera.  I’m simply going on about my life perfectly content playing in my little tykes car or on the floor with my stuffed animals lined up in perfect rows, unaware my parents were encapsulating my every move. Perhaps my favorite photograph in this category took place when I was about two years old. The photo was taken the first time I met my younger brother, we were in the hospital and my parents must have placed my brother, still swaddled in the striped hospital blanket onto my lap. In the photo, Jack is clearly shrieking in his head off and I am looking clear into the camera with an expression that can only be described as, what is this thing, why is it screaming, someone please help me. This category overall holds the most firsts: the first time I walked, ate baby food, celebrated my birthday, and met my brother, were all captured on camera and I cannot remember any of it. Though I do not remember my toddler years, I am the person I am today because of those early experiences and the photographs fill in the gaps I can’t recall. Maybe that first interaction is the reason I still find my brother so annoying or those precisely lined up stuffed animals were the start to my obsessive need for order and organization.  

Preschool and Kindergarten are where my memories start to become more concrete, and I can recall the stories behind a majority of the photographs. One of the major events during this time period was my first trip to Disney World, and obviously, 100’s of photographs detail every moment of the trip. My favorite photo from the trip is of my dad and me on the Dumbo ride. In the photo, we are flying high on the pink elephant, laughing our heads off and clearly having the time of our lives. My dad is one of the few people who has seen my alter ego, which he named Esmeralda, and it is when I simply cannot stop laughing and goofing around whether something is funny or not. This trip is when that aspect of my personality really began to shine through and it has stayed with me ever since, standing in stark comparison to the extremely shy and quiet personality I have around most people.

My time in elementary school was all about friendship and the same few faces appear in almost every photo. In elementary school, I did not have many friends, but I had a few really good ones and together we were invincible. Dubbed the three musketeers by our parents, my two best friends and I were inseparable throughout elementary school. From recreational soccer games to starting our own recycling campaign called Bottles for Recess, the three of us did everything together and took countless photos along the way. My favorite photo from this era is of the three of us getting all dolled up for the fifth-grade dance. It’s a series of pictures starting with us prancing around the house with our hair in rollers, to carefully applying each other's makeup for the first time, and ending with a photo shoot of the three of us in our neon dresses. I remember feeling so mature at that moment because I got to wear makeup and a fancy dress and how excited I was for the future.

Middle school can be summed up into one word: drama. My little group of three branched out and made new friends, and with that came so much drama. It was the typical pre-teen drama of who said what, but at the moment it felt like the end of the world. My favorite photo from this time is of some of my friends and me before the eighth-grade dance. We were the rejects who weren’t cool enough to be invited to the “squad photos” with our other “friends.”  In all of the photos, we were smiling in our pretty dresses, but you can tell from our faces there was something off; none of us were as happy as we were at the fifth-grade dance, but we were content. Unfortunately, the middle school drama had definitely gotten the best of us. Though slightly sad, this photo is my favorite because it really sums up the drama and exclusion that I faced in middle school. Though this exclusion was upsetting at times, it made me stronger and better prepared for the real world.

The first two years of high school were all about maturity and becoming independent. My parents let me do more and more things on my own and the photos reflect this as almost every photo during this time is a selfie or was taken on my Polaroid camera. My favorite photo from this time is a polaroid selfie of my trio on our first trip to NYC without our parents. It was the beginning of sophomore year and my trio had been on rocky ground since high school started but that day we were so happy and it really seemed like nothing had changed. Little did I know that will probably be the last photo we would ever take together. Out of all the photos in my room, this one brings me the most joy because even though unforgivable things have happened since that photo was taken, that last photo of the three of us represents twelve years of friendship. I wouldn’t change any of it because it made me the person I am today and shaped every aspect of my life.

There aren’t many photos hanging in my room from the last two years as most of my photos now live on my phone or Instagram, but the few that do symbolize my personal growth. My favorite photo from this time is of my mom and I on a boat in Capri, Italy, just before the start of junior year. In the photo, my mom and I are sitting on the front of the boat talking, unaware my uncle was taking pictures. My friendships at this point were basically nonexistent, and my life was falling apart at the seams but I still had my family. My mom talked me through all the bad days and constantly reassured me that everything would be okay. Though I did not believe her at the time, she was right and over time, I built myself back up and made new friends. I have grown a lot over the last two years because of everything I went through and it has had a drastic effect on the person I am today, and though not all positive those experiences and long conversations with my mom have given me a strength and perseverance that will guide me through the rest of my life.

My photographs tell the story of my life, starting from birth to present day every moment has been documented, and though the constant picture nagging from my mom can get on my nerves, I have basically a play by play of my entire childhood explaining the reasons I am the person I am today. Each photo that hangs in my room is important to me, each one documents a transformation or major moment in my life that I wouldn’t be the same without.