Picture In A Frame

Every working day, for more than five years now, this picture has been in front of me. There, not-so-noticed, as I talk on the phone and type and complain and get yelled at and get praised and fall asleep with my head in my hands.

At first, I put this picture in a frame and put it on my desk so that I could marvel in the babyhood of my only son.

I was 27. Now, I'm 33.

It's usually covered with a layer of dust save for the few occasions where I take a moment to lick my thumb and clear the frame.

Over time, my only son became my oldest son. He's grown, along with his brother.

The other day, as I took a moment to pick up the frame and take a good, conscious look at it for the first time in years, it struck me that I've only passingly, unconsciously acknowledged this image that has looked back on me eight hours a day, five days a week for the past eight years.

A lot has happened with this picture on my desk.

When a man thinks of his work and reflects upon it, he wonders whether he's been successful. Whether he's made the right decisions.

I've failed some days. I've listened to the pregnant pause fully aware that the next words could be "you're fired."

I've recovered.

I've succeeded some days. I've earned a confidence both within myself and from others that I can do no wrong.

These days are neither.

I've settled in to a certain sustainable level of mediocrity. Just grinding away so that I can come home and throw a baseball with my kid. It's just the formula the calculus of the corporate machine has rendered for me.

(I'm sure one day I'll look back on that with the feeling that I was just making excuses).

I look at the picture; my son has grown older. That's what I usually think when I glance at the picture.

But the other day, for the first time, I realized that I have grown older, too.

More wrinkles. More gray hair. I guess a little less hair, too.

Each day I've grown older. For better or worse. Spending so much time at a place where when the lamp goes dim in my darkened corner it takes me weeks to remember to replace the bulb. It's strange to watch yourself stay young as your life marches onward.

The thought of the picture struck me so much I decided to take it home. Just to make it real somehow. Home, where it's real. Not lost in the empty, half-hearted, pursuit of sustenance.

I'm going to take it back with me. Because I can't keep it here. I can't remove something beautiful to me simply because it has the capacity to remind me that I might not have made the best decisions.

I've been a father for seven years. I've been married for ten. I've worked and lived here in this town for most of them.

I was away from work this past week. During that time, my oldest son asked me if he'd always lived at our house. I told him he had.

It made me think about how they give you this baby from the hospital and you strap it into a car seat and drive 25 mph on the interstate and come to realize years later that there was no return policy even if you had a receipt.

And that how you spend your life is all about the choices you make with each passing second and the faith you have that you've made the right choices.

Now, as I look at the picture, I wonder if I've made the right choices.

Maybe. Maybe not.

In any case, I know that, today, at this moment, whatever I've done with my life thus far has made it so that new pictures interest me just as much as the old ones.