Birthday Countdown Part 3

I use to have one of those 110mm cameras. I had got it from my grandmother, Constance. It had a brown leather-esque case. I took a lot of pictures with that camera. I remember when I got it, I put an info card in it, in case it got lost. My hand writing was extremely sloppy, more so than it is now. I still remember the way my name looked.

I feel related to everyone with the name Anthony. We are a part of group, a secret collective, that only I know about.

One day in high school we got out early, it was finals. I remember everyone was going to soccer practice or hangout or do something exciting, but not me. I snuck off. I took my 110mm camera and drove around to places that had been important to my romantic development. I took a picture of Michelle's house. I took a picture of Jennifer's House. I took a picture of the cul-de-sac I lost my virginity on. I took a picture of the playground where I had my first kiss, and then I turned around a took a picture of where I had my first real kiss. I took a picture of Kimmy's house.

I know I took a lot of pictures that day. I got them developed and I used to keep them in my backpack. I didn't show these pictures to many people, if any at all. I carried them with me in boxes for a few years, moving them from place to place, house to house, until just before I moved to Sacramento, right around when I started this blog.

I took my truck to the dump and threw away a lot of things. One of those things was the box with those pictures in them. There were a lot of pictures in that box, but I remembered that set, in the blue vinyl sleeve, as the one I thought about keeping.

Sometimes you have to start over.