Everything can change within a split second. You never really know if something or someone will stay by your side for the rest of your life. From my perspective the world is not set in stone; nothing is going to stay the same. Well... this sounds very pessimistic.

I am not a pessimist by any means, but I do understand that things do change. I like to take advantage of every single moment. I like looking at what is in front of me instead of the way-distant future. I have found that people who look at the future all the time stress out too much and find themselves worrying over things that have not even happened yet.

When I look around my life, I see one thing that always surrounds me: pictures. Whether in my house, my room, or even just on my phone, I have always been a picture person. Every family likes to keep pictures hanging around the house. Some say it is for show because they want other people to see how happy the family is within a photo on the outside, but on the inside they are a rotten mess. Some families keep pictures around the house as a reminder of great times they might have had in their past, and if you are like my family, we like to keep pictures hanging around the house because it reminds us how lucky we are to have one another in each other's lives.

When I look at a picture of my family, my friends, or my boyfriend, I love that it reminds me how special and lucky I am to have these people in my life. It shows me that even though things may change in the world and even between us, I know that I have something that shows how close and unique our relationship is. Everyone has pictures just like that. I love when I feel sentimental and look back through old photos either in the cabinet or on Facebook, just from two years ago. Pictures not only remind us how lucky we are, but they let us see our past, both good and bad. They make us smile, laugh, cry, or even get mad at someone who took an embarrassing photo, but they also show us how far we have come in life and what changes we have made to get to be the person we are today.

In the distant, very distant, future when I become a mother, I want my children to know how I grew up and how lucky I was to have special people in my life. I want them to see how the relationships I had with these people helped me to become the person that I am or will be. They need to know that things can change even when you least expect them to. The most important thing is to capture the moments that make us smile, make us laugh, make us cry, or make us mad. Those are the moments that we keep forever, whether in a frame or just as a memory, but they stay with us forever, showing us that something is worth more than just a thousand words. It is worth so much more.