"We're Not Trying to Rewrite History"

It’s strange getting to know someone by looking at 20 years of their family photos before ever interacting with them. This is what I do for 6 hours a week at my “babysitting job” – I sort through photos while the baby sleeps and the mom runs around the house taking care of things.

At first, I found it odd that she was paying me to “babysit” while the baby slept and while she was home. But I’ve decided that she’s probably seeing if I can be faithful with the small things before she entrusts her little one to me.

So, I look through two HUGE boxes of photos of people I’ve never met with the following instructions, “Just pull out photos of the family that you think would be good to hang in the hallways.” And then she leaves me in that small room on the forth story of her massive house that is being renovated by at least 3 construction workers at a time. Sometimes neither she nor the baby are in the house at all because she has to drive the baby (in her SUV) to get her to fall asleep – away from all the pounding and sawing of construction work.

This job is a surprisingly difficult one. Not because it is physically or mentally taxing but because I don’t know what the “family” looks like and, furthermore, I’m not sure she knows that most of these photos seem to be 20 years of her husbands ex-life – wife, three kids and all.

So, I start by picking out good shots of the three kids who show up most often in these photos. I watch them grow from small kids – dressed up for Halloween in the Fall, through their awkward stages of bar/batmitzvas, through their senior proms and then off to college. I find myself smiling when I see their oldest daughter with her first boyfriend and their son living in his college bachelor pad.

After I spent about 3 days collecting pictures that caught the organic and raw emotion of the people who should up most often (except for the ex-wife, of course) my work got a review from my new employer. She took a look at the photos I had selected and was overjoyed at my artistic “eye” for a compelling and captivating photo.

Then after all that praise she lavished on me she said, “You know, if you see photos of his ex-wife pull them out. We’re not trying to rewrite history here!”

I felt silly for editing those ones out but I must admit… I’ve met less secure people in my day.

A friend of mine once said to me, “You know, I’m glad I keep up on my photo books every year because if I didn’t, I’m sure that I would edit out many photos that I end up putting in. Sometimes they make me blush or they don’t really represent me anymore but that’s the reality of my past and I’m glad I include it.”

I don't know about you but I am always trying to rewrite history, trying to make it look and feel better than it really was. But I wonder what I loose in the process. Maybe St. Augustine was right when he said (something like) "Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all".

So…

…my question for you is…

Would you rewrite history if you had the chance?

…do you?