To the day I stopped smiling

CHAPTER 14

To the day I stopped smiling…

“Don’t smile like that, it’s weird”- my father. “Why are you always smiling”- my teacher. “Your mouth is too small”- my sister. “You have a tiny mouth”- my teammate. I don’t when or why I stopped smiling. I don’t know if it was a person, moment or time, but one day I stopped. Maybe it’s as simple as being insecure or just life. When I was little I was the most smiley kid you’ve ever seen. Are all kids very smiley, until they grow up? Is smiling aimlessly child’s play? When I had fights, in Tae Kwon Do, I would smile and punch back. My coach used to say that smiling was my hidden talent, because it would completely throw off my opponent. Once, after a fight, the guy I’d just beat asked me why I was smiling like that, I said “I don’t know, I was having fun”. Every time someone threw a punch or kick, I’d smile thinking to myself “you don’t even know what’s coming”, people don’t always realize, but sometimes they show you everything you need to know in that first move. They show you their strength and weakness. Anyway, I guess I stopped smiling mostly in pictures, because every time someone wants to take a picture, all I can think of is “don’t smile, it looks weird”. So eventually I stopped being in pictures all together. It’s not sad, I just don’t want to be in them, I like to document everything, but I don’t need to visually be a part of it. Sometimes, I let myself be in pictures, when I’m traveling and I meet strangers in a Hostel, I let myself be in pictures, because I like the story line that one day they’ll look back and go “I don’t remember her but I guess we had fun, look at that.”

The one behind the camera,

I’m trying