Paper Ephemera

It is all there in the photo albums and the postcard books: the people, places, and things that have made up my life.

If they could, each picture, each card, would tell its story in more depth, but they cannot speak, cannot reveal what lies behind the surface of their silence.

No one but I can tell those stories.

They will die with me, taking with them the love, the laughter, the beauty, the excitement, discovery, and hope, along with all the challenges, changes, and choices of one woman’s lifetime – the quiet victories, the silent joys, and moments of peace that only I could recount.

Gone, too, will be the fears, the failures, the heartbreaks, the confusions, betrayals, and disappointments – the quiet losses, the silent sorrows of a life that was not always so well-lived as those photos and postcards would suggest.

Though the artifacts remain, the memories will be gone, and these painstakingly preserved records of my life will become nothing more than meaningless scraps of glossy paper.