Documenting Change...

Is that ever a good thing to do?

I was reading NieNie Dialogues, which is a blog I follow... The short of it is this woman has literally survived a deadly plane crash. Her blog was one that was followed by thousands before this happened, due to her honest and simple reflections and perspective on her life. Well apparently she has this ritual each year of doing silhouettes of the family, and this year she doesn't want to include hers...Because it's so different than it used to be...

I have found myself thinking of her a lot... She commented on how she likes to do her children's because they change so much from year to year... And I've been thinking how maybe a year from now she will wish she had done her own. Maybe she'll wish she had that to look back on, so she can see how far she has come, and how much she has changed. Maybe not in the physical aspect, but in all the other aspects...

Compared to the life changes or challenges this woman has had in the last 12 months, mine would not even rank... But then again they are my changes and challenges, not hers... The dilemma is taking my own advise.... I have avoided being in pictures, near pictures, anything picture related for years. I see a camera come out and I run in the other direction... almost literally. It started when I was married,,, I would see pictures of myself, and it was so obvious to me how unhappy I was, smiling or not, I could see right through it. I could never understand how others didn't notice, why no one asked... Since then it has just carried over... carried on...

Until recently... I've seen some random pictures people have taken in the last couple months,,, and quite frankly am shocked,,, shocked at how happy I look... shocked... I can't remember the last time I looked that happy, let alone genuinely was that happy... It's funny to me how when you allow yourself to come out of the fog, or the fear, or whatever you want to call it, all the residual side effects there are. The good mood, the desire to feel better, look better, be better... The best part is it's not that I am doing this for this other person,,, I'm doing it because of this other person. It's the first time in a long time where I have felt safe enough,,, just safe in general...

So, do I document all this change? Do I do my own silhouette so i can look back in a year and see how I've changed? Can a blog be a silhouette?