How Does One Lose a Moment Frozen In Time?

A photograph is a curious thing.

People say a picture is worth a thousand words...But if that is the case, then why are the best pictures captured when no words need be spoken? You don't look at a picture of two people having a conversation in a park with bright eyes and big smiles and think too deeply about it. However, I'm sure that moment portrayed in that photograph DID, in fact, contain a thousand words or more.

It's a picture of a woman mourning, or of a newly married couple smiling at one another that really says the most. However, I see things like this and can't think of a single proper word to describe it. So, how could it be worth so many as a thousand? I don't believe a picture is worth a thousand words so much as a single emotion or deep feeling.

Don't get me wrong, I realize this is merely a figure of speech. That isn't the point I'm trying to argue. What I wonder is how I can see an old picture of myself and not be able to come up with any explanation as to how I could have looked or felt that way at that point in time.

All of this could be mindless babble that no one but myself can decipher, but I'm so ENDLESSLY curious to figure out what the key to happiness is. A mystery I'm sure the entire known universe is out to crack. It isn't just me...So maybe my psycho babble will make some odd sense to possible inquirers.

I saw a picture of myself the other day...a few in fact. My feelings as I scrolled through the album of smiles and kisses wasn't that of sadness, regret, or nostalgia. I wasn't remembering the time in which the photo was taken or the circumstances. All I could do as I sat their staring at the slightly younger reflection on the computer screen was wish desperately that I could remember what it felt to be that person.

The smile plastered on my face in every single photograph wasn't in fact plastered there at all...it was genuine. I was the epitome of pure joy and happiness. It was almost sickening...yet something I still long for.

I'm making my way there, don't get me wrong, but I know that I will never return to that same "genre", if you will, of happiness.

I wonder all the time...Where did that person go?