Framed

I asked the photographer a question as we were starting the photo shoot.

“What is it about taking pictures that makes me feel so… uncomfortable?”

She paused and smiled with the knowing of someone who has seen this a thousand times. “I’ve been taking pictures for decades,” she said. “And almost every person feels exactly how you feel.”

Exactly how I feel.

That sentence stayed with me.

Exactly how I feel? The flutter in my chest, the shift in my breath, the sudden need to hide. That ache of being seen, not for who I am, but for how I look. And not even that, but for how I fear I don’t appear.

Standing in front of the lens, I felt twelve again. Disconnected.

Out of my body.

Out of my confidence.

I shrank into that familiar corner of myself.

Attempting to hide.

Suddenly, all I could see was the scar on my cheek.

The flyaway hairs that wouldn’t be tamed.

The way my arms looked.

The curve of my waist.

The body I battle to make peace with.

The frame.

The light.

The me that shows up in the world.

I focused on everything that felt unworthy of being captured.

All while forgetting:

the photo is only a moment.

A blink.

A breath.

A whisper of a glimpse.

It’s not me.

At least not the whole me.

Not the deep, holy ache I carry. Not the stories behind my eyes. Not the healing I’ve worked for.

Not the laughter that can’t be caught.

Not the softness I’ve fought to keep alive in a world that tries to harden us.

Still, something inside insisted:

“it has to be perfect.”

The right angle.

The best light.

The flattering pose.

As if my worth depends on how well I’m framed.

There it is.

That perfection again.

That old, familiar ache.

The longing I’ve carried for as long as I can remember..

to be enough.

To “look” enough.

To make sense to others in a single frozen image.

As if that would finally let me exhale.

But the cost is too high.

Why do we do this?

Why do we try to shrink and mold and twist ourselves to fit into a frame we were never meant to fit?

Why do we hold our breath and our bellies and our truth just to look right in a world that doesn’t even see?

We don’t belong in perfect frames.

We belong in motion.

In stories.

In presence.

In soft mornings and loud laughter and teary prayers and quiet courage and fly away hair!

We belong in our scars, our freckles, our honest weight, our truth.

We belong in the whole picture, not the cropped one.

So maybe next time the camera rises, I will try to remember:

I don’t need to be perfect to be seen.

I don’t need to look like the version of me I wish I was.

Because this version…the one who showed up, shaky and brave…is the one who matters.

She’s real. Alive. Accepted.

The lens will never capture her completely.

But God does.

And so will I, if I’m willing to look deeper.