The baggage of old photos

For a while, it was a good system. The new year, a fresh start, beginning with organizing (sort of) my photo life. I pulled a basket full of Advantix camera cartridge negatives and some loose photos down from a shelf. My daughter sorted through the photos and plopped them into empty photo albums. Then I took the cartridges and photo index cards (if you've ever owned Advantix cameras you will know what I mean) and put them into one small, decorative box.

The good: that decorative box will take the place of not one, not two, but three big baskets full of photos and negatives that are lurking around the house.

The bad: Bunny is putting the photos into albums with absolutely no regard for date order. How could she know? Half the photos do not have dates on them; none of them have the names of people. I fully intend to go back through and label the pages. Which is also "bad", because we all know I won't get around to that.

The ugly: I fumbled while getting down the second of the three baskets. How? I looked inside one of the photo packs. It's all pictures from my friend Emma's wedding. Emma, a girl who promptly had four kids in three years (yes), moved with her husband someplace in the b.f. foothills where the rent is cheap, and then I lost contact with her. There is some major emotional baggage wrapped up there. And that's only one pack of photos. There are, like, fifty packs in that one basket, each with its own individual story.

Mental overload. Brain fried. Must walk away, blog the frustration.

Later, I'll buy a bunch more photo albums and just let Bunny take over again for a while.

Comments

[The Wrong End of the Telescope]

Feeling your pain - I have myriad photo envelopes sandwiched not so organizedly in a Mirage (as in the Vegas hotelcasino)shoulder bag.

I feel heroic enough having had the energy to organize my grandfather's curling, yellowed though still priceless photos only to turn around and copy them onto discs for email deliverance to my peeps. Oiyyyvay.

Love yer blog - will be back for more bean-notes.
Happy New Year!