Looking at My Childhood Photographs

This morning I found one of my family's photo albums, as I opened it I remembered that we've had this photo album for decades. Every page was just as I remembered. It begins with pictures that my mom had cut out of magazine of some celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and Brittany Spears. After a few pages, there was a class picture of my kindergarten class. As soon as I saw my kindergarten self I felt an emotion that I think could be described as a mixture of pity and sadness, and that emotion was directed at the kindergarten version of me. My thoughts were saying something like, "Damn look at this kid, I wish I could be there to give him a hand. He needs so much back up." He seemed to be a bit distanced from the other kids, and his smile was forced. Part of me felt that, that kid is still in me now and I can still give him that back up now. As I continued turning the pages, I saw my class pictures from 1st grade, 2nd, 3rd and all the way to 6th grade. As I got older in the pictures I saw myself becoming more centered, more aware, and my gaze becoming increasingly stronger. At about 5th grade, I saw that I was expressing a huge genuine smile on my face in the picture! This made me feel relieved, this kid was finally starting to enjoy life. 6th grade, another big smile in the class picture. As I flipped the pages I saw some pictures from middle school and high school, and the kid seemed to be struggling a bit again but I had faith in him. If I remember correctly, my favorite year of high school was my senior year. My best friend Arturo and I had a BLAST performing music and cracking ridiculous jokes that entire year. I can imagine a picture of us laughing about something silly to the point of tears, something that actually did happen during our senior year!

I think I just want to laugh... like Bodai the bald fat 'buddah' that we often see in Chinese restaurants. That dude is just laughing his ass off while being obese and rocking those shiny pink nipples. I wanna laugh like that guy.