Photobooth Memories

 If there is one thing I cannot help collecting, it is books, including blank books. Each fresh page is a story waiting to be told, fraught with possibility. 

Thanks to my mom, who bought me my first pretty red journal and sat me down to write in it every Sunday, I've been journaling since I was barely able to form letters; scrawling long, tortuously detailed and emotional journal entries was my therapy during my teenage and young adult years. This love of writing and journaling compels me to collect blank books when I find them at a good price, even if I don't have an immediate purpose for them.

Today I decided to inventory how many blank books I actually own, seeing as how I've been making blank books from scratch in the last couple weeks. Turns out I have a lot of blank books. I could never buy or make another blank book again and still be set for life. 

In the process of sorting through my bookshelves, I also unearthed some old photos from my college days, including some silly photobooth photos taken with my roommate during the time we went to BYU--probably during our freshman year. I decided to scan them, and I'll send the relevant ones to Erin, who is the beautiful redhead in the photos (not that you can tell in these black-and-white photos, but she does have lovely red, naturally curly hair. I am a brunette, and our other best friend was a blonde, so we felt that made us a well-rounded group). 

Weren't we so young and cute in 1991? My natural eyebrows almost make up for my stupidity at that age.

Despite a few rough patches along the way, Erin and I were good friends from the moment we met, and we roomed together as long as I was at college. We still keep in touch, and she sends me a Christmas card every year. She majored in statistics (have you ever tried statistical math? She has beauty and brains!), served a mission in Brazil, and then got an excellent job with the government, which has allowed her and her husband and cute kids to live in countries all over the world as her job requires. 

I did find one more strip of photobooth photos, this one taken with a friend and co-worker, Matt. Erin and I and Matt (among many others) worked together at a family camp in the mountains during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college. Matt and I didn't date (he had a girlfriend at home), but we hung out together a lot. We had to, really, since the entire staff lived at the camp full-time during the week and we were each others' social lives on weekends unless you had a home to go to in the valley, which I didn't. I worked on the maintenance crew, Erin worked in the gift shop/store, and Matt was a food server. 

I vaguely remember that I needed a passport-size photo, which is why I'm sitting by myself in the last photo. Can't remember what that photo was for, but I'm glad I have this memory. I might have been young and stupid at this age, but to make things worse, I was also a flirt. Poor Matt. 

Matt was such an adorable goof. Sadly, once he left on his mission, we lost touch, and I have absolutely no idea how his story has turned out. I hope it has been a happy one.

That reminds me that I also got to be good friends with Matt's best friend, Gage, who often came up to the camp to pick Matt up on the weekend. A group of us would often pile into Gage's car and go play in the valley on a Saturday evening. 

Gage and Matt were both a couple years younger than me, and that two-year gap was how Gage and I ended up in the MTC at the same time, though I left for England before he left the MTC. We wrote back and forth for a while during our missions but also, ultimately, lost touch. That most likely happened when I met my future husband and didn't feel right about writing other boys.

The inscription on the back reads "On a temple day. Don't you miss it?"

It's hard to tell from this picture, but Gage, like Matt, was a good-looking kid. 

Anyway, I've bored you long enough with my rambling memories of yesteryear. Thanks, as always, for being game enough to come along. Sometimes, after I've looked at old photos and remembered the stories behind them, I'm surprised to look in the mirror and see a doughy middle-aged woman. I wouldn't give up the happy, amazing life I've had or the things I've learned, however, even if it meant I could be young and cute again. Well, wait just a minute now. I might give up some lessons learned in order to get that young, effortlessly slim, energetic body back, but I promise I would use it only for good. Like deep cleaning. Or yard work. Shopping for cute clothes. You know, productive stuff.