I used this picture during December’s “Reflections” challenge over on Eulallia.com, but I thought it fit so perfectly with March’s “Time” challenge that I decided to use it again. To see more pictures go to the Self Portrait Tuesday blog.

When I was five years old, my mom rented a video camera to document a day in the life of our family:

My sister has just turned two, and my dad has a huge bushy beard. We live in the house by the freeway with the hideous green shag carpet and metallic flowered wallpaper. My mom wears glasses with lenses almost as big as her face, and the blue parakeet that died when I was six flits around the house, perching on shoulders and lampshades. My uncle is young and healthy, the cancer yet to ravage his body. My baby cousin is small and still, years of surgeries ahead of her to correct her birth defects. My sister keeps singing “Frothty the NOOOOman!” and she’s wearing only one blue sock. She insists she’s a boy named Matthew. I spend the majority of the time trying to get people’s attention, sticking my face in front of the camera and once swearing loudly from the corner with the Barbies. My grandma’s hair hasn’t turned gray yet, and my grandpa is tall, strong, and thin. My mom’s voice sounds the same.

…

Andy Warhol said, “They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”

I wonder if that’s true.