Photos That Inspire

This picture is one of me and my two younger sisters when we were much younger. The three of us are curled up on a red couch in the first house of which I have clear memories. We are all three wearing white, in contrast to the red of the couch and the reddish brown of the tile on the floor behind it. The blankets we are sharing are also white, with some pink mixed in, which matches the color of our skin.

The reason that this photo is meaningful and inspirational to me is that it seems to be representative of childhood and family. I am not, now, as close to my sisters as I was at the time that the photo was taken. We have grown older, moved apart, and developed our own personalities and interests. The physical resemblance between us has also decreased; though we all still look alike, a friend would never look at a picture of the three of us now and be unable to tell which sister is me. Though we still spend time together and still love each other, it seems unlikely that we will ever again curl up on a couch with as little physical or emotional space between us as in that picture. In this sense, I am envious of children; when we are young, we lack the anxieties and inhibitions that develop as we get older; the simplicity and the warmth of the colors in the picture is, to me, representative of the simplicity and the warmth of the affection that children, whether sisters or friends, have for one another and for the adults in their life.

This photo is a reminder to me that I, and other adults, should perhaps feel less self-conscious about familial or other love. It makes me want to do whatever I can to regain some of the simple and pure moments of physical and emotional affection that characterize childhood. It inspires me to attempt to regain some of the closeness my sisters and I had in that picture, and makes me want to regain some of the wisdom I had and lost at five years old.