Catching Up

I spend a lot of time relecting on the past. It's in my nature or, probably more true, my upbringing. I'm not alone in this. My siblings spend a lot of time thinking about the past, too. I don't know where it comes from.

My family's gone through some very tough times. Fiscally. Emotionally. And -- forgive the gross generalization, as I'm sure some of them probably have contrary (and very supportable) takes on this -- as a group, I think we tend to dwell on those times.

I'm always amazed when I meet people who have come through difficulties and resolutely want to look ahead, without dwelling on the past. I think to myself, "How do you do that?" The past weighs on my thoughts always. It seems as though, for my family, there's no escaping it. It's not a matter of just saying, "Oh, I'm just not going to dwell on it anymore." If it were that easy, I think we'd have moved on.

And I don't mean to suggest that we're a non-functioning bunch of emotional cripples. We have moved on. We make our lives and sometimes they're joyful and sometimes they're sorrowful and sometimes they just skate along as boring as could be. Some of us, granted, are more successful at it than others, but that's true of any family.

So I wonder what makes us different from those people who just let go of the past.

I hate those people.

I've had precious little time, lately, to just hang out and snap photos.

Hopefully, I can manage to rectify that soon.

But I was going through some old photos recently, and came across a number of them that I rather like, mostly 'cuz they showcase some vistas of which I'm rather fond:

I decided to force myself out over the weekend and wander around Prospect Park. I took a lot of photos that I ended up not loving, but I got a couple of the fountain by the arch at Grand Army Plaza that I really, really dig.

So, for what it's worth:

So I'm not really sure if liking this makes me a hipster, or just gay. Only time will tell.