Or, rather, seven portraits.
I recently found a stack of old ID cards from my high school days in a drawer, a discovery that led to an interesting mix of amusement and horror as I flipped through them. My self-image has never been very good — it’s only been in the last few years that I’ve really started to be comfortable with the way I look — and flipping through these really reminded me of just how low my self-esteem was in those days. Pretty scary, actually.
So what do I do, but take them to work, scan them all in, and bring them back here to expose them to the world.
There’s something seriously, seriously wrong with me. ;)
1986: Jr. High
My military dependent ID card. I’m actually guessing that this was issued roundabout 1996 or so (going by a standard 5-year time before expiration), which would put me in 7th grade, and all of 13 years old. It’s been something of a “ha-ha-only-serious” running joke in my family that if I were ever to consider having children, I’d have to warn the bearer of said children that dental bills would be a necessity in future years. A gap between my teeth you could have driven a railroad through! Just the beginning of many years of battles with dentists, unfortunately.
The pasty white skin? That’s not just a bad ID picture, or even the side effects of having your typical Alaska fishbelly-white tan. I really was — am — that pale. Translucent, even. Mom usually knew when I was sick when she noticed that I had some color in my cheeks and looked like a normal human being.
My ears really stuck out, too, didn’t they? Yikes.
1987: Freshman year
My school ID from my freshman year at Bartlett. As far as ID pictures go, this one’s rather singularly bad — not only is it out of focus, but I was wearing a blue t-shirt and put against a blue background, so it practically looks like there’s nothing more than my disembodied head floating in the corner of the ID.
Not too terribly many changes from the previous year, though. It’s hard to tell, but there have been improvements in my smile by this point — no more trains driving through the gap in my teeth. A small car, maybe, but no trains. The rest is pretty much the same. Unruly hair, bad glasses, and ears…my god, those ears!
1988: Sophomore year
Apparently, the staff at Bartlett that were in charge of ID photos were more concerned with getting as many done as possible during the allotted time than actually bothering to place us somewhere within the focus range of the camera. And, again, I managed to wear a blue shirt on the day of the photos, so we’ve got another disembodied head photo. Just a talent of mine, I suppose.
While there’s not a huge difference here, you can see that I’m starting to lose the “little kid” look of the first two pictures. I still look young, but I’m definitely starting to lose some of the roundness in my face of the childhood baby fat (quite possibly practically the only fat I’ve ever had on my body — while school IDs don’t have weight and height on them, that military ID from 1986 lists me as 5’2″ and 100lbs.). It’s a start…
1989: Junior year
Sweet sixteen and never been kissed — that was me during my Junior year in high school. I’d gotten new glasses at some point in the previous year, though, which was a good thing. More progress on giving me a more normal smile, and I’m definitely starting to come closer to looking my age, though that’s something that still hasn’t quite happened yet (I’m often assumed to be two or three years younger than I actually am…more, if I shave the face fuzz that I have now).
1990: Senior year
Look, ma, no braces! Plus the debut of what has become my standard dress code: basic black. Amusingly enough, while it’s still a blue background, they’d switched to using one of the school walls as a backdrop, and it’s such a dark blue that we still get pretty close to that wonderful “floating head” effect. I just can’t win, can I?
Really, though, as far as ID pictures go, aside from being (still) slightly out of focus, this one’s not too shabby. To tell the truth, if I were to shave, this is pretty close to how I’d look now, though at the tender age of 17, I definitely still had a few years of growing to do. I never did “fill out”, as many children do as they work their way through puberty — I weighed about 135 my senior year, and these days I tend to fluctuate between 135 and 140 — rather, what little baby fat I carried around became muscle, and I went from being skinny to being wiry (skinny with muscles, as opposed to skinny without muscles).
Another shot from my senior year — my “all access” pass from my position as Layout Editor of the Bartlett yearbook staff. Mostly, I’m just including it because I love my expression. I don’t think I was in the process of getting goosed, but given the rest of the crew on the yearbook staff that year, I’m not sure I’d entirely discount the possibility either.
The last one I found from my senior year was my state ID. Black shirt, white suspenders — I was stylin’! I even had a white panama hat to go with the ensemble, though I’m not wearing it in this picture. Again, not a terrible shot as far as ID pictures go, though I have to wonder, does anyone look good against that horrid yellow background? I’m pale enough as it is, and that certainly doesn’t help!
Conclusion
I’m so glad I grew up.
At the same time…I’m glad I kept these. Rather surprised, to tell the truth, but as much as they make me cringe — and they do — it’s nice to be able to look at a collection like this and then take a look at myself today. Quite the difference, really.
“You’ve come a long way, baby…”