Every Seventh Year

When I was a child I was a lens louse. I loved posing for the camera and the camera loved me. The older I got the less inclined I became being in front of the camera, and the camera most certainly slowly and surely fell out of love with me. Our relationship just wasn't what it used to be - and soon we really begun to hate eachother. A lot.

Today there are few things I hate doing more than posing for the camera, and the camera definitely loathes me. I look more than awkward in front of the camera, it just isn't the person I see in the mirror. Far from. Hello there, goblin, who are you?

So I shy away from having my picture taken - and when I can't I just hate seeing the end result, and it really isn't any fun, at all, when those darn pictures are shown around amongst family and friends. Major case of shudder.

The photos you really by no means whatsoever can get away from, like passports, ID-cards and so on, they're just the worst, and you have to live with them for years and years... I actually sort of liked the picture on my previous passport, ok I looked a bit like a scared bunnyrabbit but it was sort of endearing at least. On my new passport I look like a female, and very zonked, version of the grandfather in Kalles klätterträd (Charlie's Climbingtree).

I loved that TV-series when I was a child, still do, but I never really aspired to look anything remotely like a cartoon character under the influence of illegal substances when I grew up and had to have my picture taken. It's so beyond laughable, it's just tragic.

But, every seventh year or so, the unknown fairy godmother of picturetaking whisks her magic wand and *abracadabra* I actually manage to look pretty decent on a picture or two. Just a shadow of the former loved-by-the-camera-lens-louse, but still something I can live with without getting a mini version of a panic attack every time I have to show it in public. Oh how I wish that magic picturetaking wand could be whisked my way a bit more often...