Photographic Memory by Kathryn

Photographic Memory by Kathryn - April 2016 Scholarship Essay

Everyone has had that time when your camera was ready, poised with grace to capture the scene in front of you, but a grouchy old lady scolded,” Put that thing down! When you get to my age you won’t remember this moment because you where too busy fiddling with that thing” as she points a shaking finger to your phone. Look that small elderly lady in the eyes and take a picture of her, just so you will remember that exact moment in time.

Do you want to know the truth about high school? Well here it goes, you will not remember who Henry I through Henry VIII was. The multiple essays that you stayed up all night writing are just going to be files on your computer that you have no recognition of. All those quick cram sessions that you had with your friends right before that chemistry test, gone. And you most definitely will not remember everything that you were tested on because in reality you did not really learn it. Perhaps the Pythagorean Theorem will stay alive in a dark dusty corner of your mind, never to be used again.

You will forget your teachers’ names except your two favorite – or the one you hated, but with time that too fades and you will be left with the feeling of that name on the tip of your tongue. Or that guy who sat beside you your freshman year, the upper classman who was just so hot, you honestly will not be able to describe what he looks like in a while. Who was popular, who was weird, and what number was on your boyfriend’s jersey… all gone.

The first day of junior year when you were so excited, you were even dressed in the best outfit that you could find, with your favorite white pants on, when someone pointed out that your butt was pink – your brand new red backpack ruined your pants and it wasn’t even the end of first period. You sat there humiliated, untucked your shirt and hoped for the best. Guess what that memory right there one day is going to be gone, that burning white feeling in your chest is going to melt away. When asked what you used to do for fun in your too small of a town you are going to draw a blank. You will not recall when you and your friends got Taco Bell and drove around town way out in the boonies looking at all the really nice houses, singing to the radio and making up stories about who lives there.

One day you will forget about everyone that you knew and barely remember all of the memories that you made until you see a picture that makes you think of them. You will be scrolling through your Facebook feed and catch sight of a picture from your sophomore year. Next thing you know will be thrown back into time and you will remember that late night, the constant laughing and the scaring yourselves with all of the horror movies you thought you could take. You will see that one picture of the four of you making the weirdest of faces, in the worst lighting possible and you will remember what high school was really about.

My advice to you: take those pictures, don’t feel weird about it or think that others are judging you for always being prepared to capture a moment. Every picture holds a story, it can be good or bad, but every picture is a return ticket to that moment in time. Be that kid that has hundreds of pictures from just their freshman year alone, because everything only happens once and you don’t want to forget it. In years to come you will wish you had photographic memory.