this moment is reason enough

This is something I think about when I happen to find an old photo.

How many versions of ourselves pass by unnoticed and undocumented? How easy it is to think, “Well, I’ll wait until later, when I feel more like myself to take a photo”.

But by the time “later” arrives, that version of you—the one you’re in right now—is already gone. Just like the seasons, we revolve. We maintain who we are while we shift in and out of seasons and versions of ourselves. This is our entire life.

The photos of myself that have meant the most to me aren’t the prettiest ones. They’re the ones that caught something real: a softness I didn’t notice at the time, a little strength in my eyes, a memory I didn’t know I’d want to hold onto. And it always makes me wish I had taken more. Not because I looked a certain way—but because I was there. And that’s something.

So if you’ve been wondering whether it’s silly or indulgent to have your photo taken just because—let me be the one to say: it’s not. It’s brave. It’s beautiful. And it’s okay to want to remember yourself like this.

There’s something kind of magical about finding an old photo that I forgot existed.
Tucked into a drawer, slipped behind a book, or crammed into an old shoebox.
I wasn’t posing. I wasn’t thinking about how it would age.
And yet, looking at it now, it holds a whole era of who I was. Flooding me with memories. Happy and heavy, all the same.

Sometimes it’s the only proof that a certain version of me ever existed at all.

And that’s why it matters. Not because we need to archive everything, but because some moments deserve to be honored—not just the loud ones, not just the celebrated ones. The quiet seasons, the overlooked ones… they’re worthy, too.

So take the photo.
Even if it feels small.
Even if you’re not quite ready.
Even if no one else will see it.

You will see it. And you will see yourself.
You’ll be glad you did.

Cover photo by Michellee Hartley