i got a call the other day...

... asking me when it would be a good time to pick out bridesmaids dresses with a good friend of mine.

A NEW PROJECT IS BORN.

i have never been one to take self-portraits but on the suggestion of someone i might give it another shot.

there were few things i was ever sure of when i was leaving high school except for the fact that i would be the last of my friends to marry. i was usually the butt of the joke... it was often discussed that i would be happily single and living in a foreign country. everyone assumed they'd have to fly me and my foreign companion in from some far-off land. (assuming also that i could return after being an ex-pat. of course.)

i was so okay with this. i'm still okay with this... i guess i just thought it would happen when i was 27. don't ask me why 27... it just seemed like the approriate age. like give me a chance to defect from the country and find a foreign companion first okay? i'll take care of it by the time i'm 27.

i have one ex-boyfriend that's married now, and another that's engaged. i'm 21. was thinking that this was going to happen at 27... so far off? really? was it?

i will attend 3 more weddings in the next two years, two of which i will be a bridesmaid in.

i need to document this because as my friends are worrying about houses and weddings and china and inlaws... and babies? and retirement funds, while they do that i spend 8-14 hours of my day taking/making/talking or thinking about pictures. i need to document this because sometimes i just watch my own life unfold from the perspective of an unattached third party. i just watch myself like i watch a sitcom. because i know this is going to pan out something like i expected... but i won't be 27, and i won't fly in from europe, and i'll still be thinking i'm too young for this to actually be happening.

the first invitation came two weeks ago.

i watch my life like a sitcom, when i'm on my way to the bridal shower and secretly kind of bummed i'm missing a toga party? i'm so fucking mature...

like when my friend in D.C. called me after she was proposed to kennedy style. same booth in the same resturant john proposed to jackie. it was a friday night and Sara B and i were scrubbing trays... and hoping there would be an opportunity to get wasted that night.

i'm happy. i'm fufilled. this is what i wanted.

andrea called me after valentine's day to tell me she was engaged.

i was broken up with acouple days before... she asked me what was new with me... nothing. pictures. darkroom. school.

i'm happy. i'm fufilled. this is what i wanted.

seriously.

but it's true, it is, i don't envy them, i'm just in awe of how immature i am? am i really? i can't balance my checkbook, can't keep my room clean, sometimes i can't bring myself to get out of bed in the morning, and i sure can't keep someone in my life for more than acouple months if i even manage that... because most of the time i'm much too much chickenshit to even do anything about any feelings i have for anyone... so most of the time i just watch the people i care about most walk out of my life from an unattached third party perspective... because i'm watching a sitcom and this isn't my life.

but it is. and i'm not 27 yet. and that's not stopping anyone from growing up much too quickly. so what can i do but take pictures of it? or not, and continue watching like it's not actually my life.