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The girl in the photograph looks a lot like me. She is flanked by three younger girls, one of whom is having a spectacular preschooler meltdown. The girl is laughing. She has crooked teeth and a red sweater and a bad Lady Di haircut. The girl in the photograph looks like me because she is me. But I don t entirely recognize her. I haven t seen her in a very long time.
My aunt texted the picture to me a few days ago. She was going through some old photographs, and found this one with her daughters when we were kids. I gasped a little when I saw the image my old living room, my old living room couch, my old haircut. Unlike my digital age daughters, who have amassed thousands of images of themselves from birth to present moment, I don t have too many photographs from my past. My childhood exists almost entirely in my imperfect memory.