Youth

Pictures always make you think about life. Nowadays technology even lets you see someone else’s pictures, even after years of your last conversation happening.

It is a boring afternoon like many others in which you have nothing better to do than to be nosy, but this time besides finding out who is married, who is not and who is already in the process of reproducing, you realize that most people in those pictures were once part of yours even if they are not there anymore. Quickly you realize how all that was familiar is not anymore, and the most interesting part is to realize what would be familiar to you if you had or hadn’t done certain things with your life.

As you keep flipping the electronic pages, showing mostly happy faces, you put away your agnostic thought – Are they really happy or just lying to themselves to make things all right? – And focus on the superficial. Most of them look old, what you would consider old back when they were smiling besides you on the class picture, and to your relief you realize you look about the same as ten years back. You can notice some of the rough treatment you gave to your body in the last few years, but overall you look young, perhaps much younger than you really are.

And as you see the almost middle aged looking men that are together with those that were your school mates and twigs at one point in time, you warmly look at your partner’s picture. He looks so young, his face and his body are wonderful… his entire entity is full of life, he is surrounded by a certain curiosity and innocence that are long gone in the faces of those men. Their holiday pictures look like they were taken out of a pink novel… in a remote place, during a wedding in Mexico:

A woman wears a large amount of make up with an over styled dress, she lets you know she once was young, and sometimes she hides a pregnant body. She is hugged by a man wearing a white shirt that strangles him a little. He looks older, his arms, somewhere between strong and chubby are around her as the Sun reflects on those parts of his skull’s skin where hair will never again grow as well as on his shining expensive watch. They are smiling profusely; she holds a flower that makes a strong contrast to her dress at the moment the photographer took the picture. You always wonder why is it that people from your generation at home seem to be so crazy about pretending they were New York’s jet set.

Your pictures with your boyfriend, they are different. Usually there are more people. He is holding a cigarette, you are holding a drink, perhaps a joint and someone else in the picture is screaming. It looks more like the pictures taken in a party that got out of hand. No one is wearing anything else than a t-shirt, an old pair of jeans and worn out chucks and knows that out of hand is actually their normal state.

Most of your electronic pages do not reveal the romance you and him have, but people that see you cannot deny it. You are deeply in love, and maybe you are even more romantic than those people in the perfect pictures because neither of you believe in perfect love and you think you could lose each other any minute. Besides that, there is something else you share that those old couples don’t have any more, besides loving each other; you are in love with your youth.