When you’re a kid, your mom takes your picture on the first day of school.
When you’re a teenager, your friends take your picture to put in the yearbook “Most likely to Succeed” or some shit like that.
When you’re a young adult, your girlfriend or boyfriend takes relentless photos of your ass at the park while you’re feeding the ducks, or your nostrils while you’re sleeping in the secondhand queen size bed you both share in the basement apartment you can barely afford.
When you’re old enough to have kids, your in-laws take your photo in front of their fireplace during the holidays with your kids in your lap or in your arms with your matching ugly sweaters.
When you get divorced or breakup from that long term relationship, you find yourself alone and with the burning question in your mind:
“Who is going to take my picture now?”
“Who is going to love me now?”
“Who is going to make me happy?”
The answer unfortunately is you. You have to do all the hard work and pick up that busted suitcase full of your emotional baggage and find that home inside yourself that you can rest your head in. You have to make yourself smile. You have to tell yourself to say: “Cheeeese” and take the damn photo by yourself. The thing about cheek muscles is they’re within you. Only you can control the muscles in your face to resemble the shape of the happiness that is reflective from your own self work. No one can do the work for you anymore.