looking through my camera roll has typically been a task for me. for a while it was difficult for me to look at photos from even a month prior — life moved too fast to process, and thinking about how much had changed in 30 days was stressful and nostalgic in some way i still can't quite put words to.

now, that feeling has swung all the way around. life has moved so fast for so long now that it's all kind of a wash. my camera roll is one big blur of color and full of fabric article numbers and old revolving door roommates and the occasional face i don't see anymore that makes my chest pang and i have to close the app.

the beautiful thing is now i can sort through my photos and not feel the same grief that i used to (grief that could probably be attributed to my era of first great heartbreak, stress of moving every nine months, pace of life and general coming-of-age-ness). in fact, the feeling is maybe the same and somehow now, after enough time, my heart is simply open to it.

i have to reference my camera roll quite a bit at work, which i don't love –– i love what i do, just not the fact it bleeds over into my personal database of images. it gives me trouble that they have to exist in the same space. my images are so sacred to me now.

besides the fact, i'll be looking for a photo of a sample, director over my shoulder, and scrolling past concert videos, park hang with my friends, my 0.5 walk 2 work flicks, text screenshots, junk junk and junk and gold. feels like a portal into other worlds that should not be opened in a professional setting. feels wrong to me.

i have no idea how much i am paying apple to keep all these photos and i have no idea how or where they are stored and i am scared to look up either.

i have no idea how many photos i have or how many is too many.

i had no idea what to do with all of these sacred photos until this blog –– i tried playing with substack, which i guess i enjoy as well and i'm still not so familiar with it, but this just. feels better.

this newfound relationship with my library of life feels formative. it feels like i am getting to watch a part of my creative process solidify –– a part of my creative process that is going to stick around for years and i will remember the before this and after this.

it's no longer so rigid. these moments are not gone and over, they exist here, now. i snap a quick pic as an easter egg to myself, knowing it'll get buried. i don't have to remember to look for it, it will show up when it's needed.

i've let go of this false expiration for how long a reference photo is valid for.

since i live in the archive now, nothing is old or new. it is not a measuring tape or a wheel or an escalator. it is a city. it is the ocean. it's whack-a-mole.

it's not so scary anymore.