I promise that my post about senior pictures (reason number 1) is just a few days away. I have been waiting for final edits from the photographer, and posts with a lot of pictures take me awhile because of my technical ineptitude. In the meantime, I submit to you reason number 9 for not crying during your daughter’s senior year: ugly pictures.
Being the mom of many kids has a number of advantages, not the least of which is the fact that I have lots of opportunities to try things. I get more practice than most, just in sheer repetition. People who meet me through my younger children sometimes have the mistaken impression that I know what I’m doing. The reality is, however, that I am both naturally clueless, and have a tendency to be a bit unobservant. My mom used to call me the absentminded professor, or, like a book I read once (touché), I am “so focused on the sky that I am in danger of walking off cliffs.” Couple that with the fact that I spent a full decade of my life not sleeping through the night (every baby I had took almost 2 years—or the birth of a younger sibling—to learn how to sleep more than four consecutive hours) and am usually running at mock speed between raising kids and working a day job, and it’s possible that I miss some critical clues to what is coming next in the life of my beloved oldest child.
In my defense, I knew we had senior pictures. A lot of the rituals of the final year of high school have been vastly embellished or added since 1993, but this senior picture thing I saw coming and prepared for. What I didn’t realize, however, was that parents, especially moms, are often invited (or invite themselves) into a shot or two. You might think I would have noticed this at the formal dance gatherings at local places where moms seem to get all Gap or Abercrombied up to go take selfies with their high schoolers (not me—as recently as prom last year I wore crocs, sweatpants, and a shirt that said “I just want to drink wine and hug my dog” to the photo shoot. Because—clueless). Anyway, we did Grace’s pictures at the lake, and lake time for me is characterized by two things—no make-up and infrequent showers. So while Grace was primping and polishing, I sat on the deck with a vodka tonic and my dear old friend who was taking the pictures. It never occurred to me to change out of my lake uniform—old tank top, hiking shorts, and crocs—or to put on make-up or attempt to rescue my unwashed for approximately 3 days hair from it’s signature messy bun.
Imagine my surprise when, near the end of the shoot, my friend asked me to stand next to my gorgeous teenager for a shot or two. I made a rule for myself regarding matters like this a long time ago—don’t be a party pooper. This request must have struck us as hilarious because first my friend took this photo of the two of us laughing together. I love this one. My girl has the goofiest, loudest, silliest laugh that I’ve loved her whole life. She’s too cautious and serious to let it fly too often or in too many places. But she’ll laugh like this with me, sometimes. Not crying.
Eventually, I smiled and put my arm around my beautiful girl with no intention, ever, of sharing the photos. This is obvious because you can see I did not bother to relinquish my vodka tonic or to remove the powder compact from my pocket that looks unfortunately similar to a tin of chewing tobacco. It’s probably not a big deal that I hadn’t put on any make-up for these couple photos because I obviously wouldn’t have cried it off during the photos before anyway.
We got the photos back from my friend a few days ago, and Grace noted that the shots of her and I were missing. “Where are the ones with you?” she asked. Not crying.
“Why do you want those?” I asked. “I didn’t even dress up or wear make-up or anything,” I said.
“I don’t care,” she said. “What difference does that make?”
What difference indeed. Of course, this girl has seen me a million times without makeup. She first laid eyes on me in a similarly unadorned state— my face puffy and exhausted and full of exhilaration and fear, my hair a frizzy disaster. My face was unmade and my hair was messy all those middle of the night encounters when I nursed her, then helped her to the bathroom, then soothed her nightmares, then kissed her coming in from a late night with friends. I never wear make-up at the lake—all those gorgeous long days under the summer sun. I pull my hair up every day on my way home from work—by the time she sees me I’m always wearing a messy bun. This is who I am to her—more often than the put together, made up, fashion conscious woman I sometimes think I want to be. This is morning me and late night me and relaxed weekend me. In actuality, I’ve never been much interested in the trappings of fashion or beauty, and even if I had been, I’ve been way too busy and consumed with the raising of Grace and her siblings to devote much time to such pursuits, even if they had been a priority for me. I’ve often lamented the feeling that my kids don’t really even see me. I’m just mom. Hands that braid and cook, feet that rush in late to everything, voice that nags and says “I love you, be awesome” twenty times a day, eyes that never fill over her belovedness. Documenting this moment—when she is brilliant and beautiful and I’m sloppy and a bit frazzled—is probably representative of our lives to this point. Had I looked all put together and hair-sprayed in this wildflower meadow, I might have looked prettier, but I would have looked less like me.
Did Grace realize this? Did she put it altogether in such a metaphoric way and wipe away a tear at the thought of missing my signature messy bun next year? I can say with one hundred percent and absolute certainty that she did not. But she noticed the photos with me were missing and asked for them. She laughed with me in a wildflower meadow under a setting sun. She pressed her precious cheek to mine for this magic moment now captured forever in a couple of pictures that, on second thought, maybe aren't quite as ugly as I first thought. I’m not crying. You’re crying.
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