(Not) Being Young

I remember being a senior in high school. But not really. I remember what it felt like, but what part I played, who I was, what separated me from the rest, I have no clue. May be nothing. Being a senior is, in my mind, an amorphous mass of hormone vessels conquering the summit. Every summit. Without much of an individual identity, full of life, unstoppable. The power and total lack of it of the teenage years.

Where I come from, senior year is the year you embark on a wild snow trip away from home for ten days of unsupervised fun. The USA traditional senior photo is not among our traditions. During the adventure, which is mined with bad decisions and regrettable actions, we take silly photos of each other and some posed ones of the group. Not much worth saving. Not much one can identify as self. I remember seeing my cousin's group photos from when they went on their senior trips, hanging sadly on the walls of their rooms. I remember trying to spot them in the group of blurry, triumphant expressions of youth in colorful eighties puffy jackets.

In days like today; when my best friend from high school announces some random event in her adult life, I wish I remembered who we were. I wish I had photos of us as BFFs that I deemed worthy of saving and having. And that is why I am slightly nostalgic, but also incredibly excited that Lifgtfolly now offers senior photography to that not-yet-woman-and-no-longer-girl, who twenty years from now will embrace her portraits of a time when all summits were conquered and wrinkles were for somebody else.

Models: Gina and Cassidy
HMUA: Robin McIntyre