Twenty-Two Years Ago

This picture is twenty-two years old. A picture of a newborn baby girl sleeping in the hospital nursery.

I was once that baby girl.

This is the very first picture ever taken of me. The little girl born at Scarborough General Hospital twenty-two years ago today.

Don't I look so little? So sweet and inncoent? I'm not usually overly impressed by my baby pictures (I was fat, bald and tended to drool a lot), but this one is pretty adorable.

My father told me that he spent hours just staring through the window and looking at me in the hospital nursery. He said he was just so amazed that he and my mother had created something so small and innocent, and (in his words) so perfect.

Of course, the baby girl grew up and there were moments over the following twenty-two years where my parents thought I was anything but perfect.

But in that moment, I was a blank canvas in many ways. My parents didn't know who I was going to be, they could only wait and guess at the personality I would have and the things I would do.

Twenty-two years later, I've obviously painted in some of that canvas. My personality has been molded and in those twenty-two years the people around me have gotten to know me and my parents got to watch the personality unfold.

The last twenty-two years have been interesting ones. My life. So many twists and turns and choices. All the things that have made me the person I am and it started with that little baby in the picture.

That was me, on this day so long ago... Or at least it seems like a long time ago now.

I'm not sure this post makes a lot sense, blame in on birthday musings and I'll add: Happy Birthday to me!

Comfortable

I really like this picture. It might not be the best picture of me, I might not look as good as I do in other pictures, but I still love this picture. It's just such a comfortable picture of me. It's just me relaxing, in a chair in the house I grew up in.

Don't get me wrong. I love this house, the one we live in now, but it's not where I spent my childhood. That was spent at my grandfather's house and a lot of it was spent in the room in this picture, now a sort of central place with a table and chairs, a recliner and bookcases. But it used to be my playroom.

The location isn't the only reason I love this picture. I just love how relaxed and content I look and comfortable--that house might not be my home anymore, but I'll always be welcome there and I know it.

This picture was actually taken the night before my grandfather's 92nd birthday. There was a family dinner and I was waiting for that to begin and for the rest of them to stop playing scrabble (which I hate).

This is probably the most pointless entry I've ever done, but I really wanted to post this photo. Just becasue I like it so much.

Maybe because this photo is me. I'm not dressed up, I'm not posing, I'm just being myself--relaxing in one of the places I'm most comfortable, around people I love. This is the real Michelle.