Toni + Aaron

These photos are of my beautiful childhood friend, Toni, and her fiancee Aaron. A few weeks ago, we drove out to the Salt Flats, I pointed a camera, and they did the rest. I'm not a professional photographer, by any means, but luckily they are both beautiful enough that any flaws on my part are lost. They're so adorable it hurts me.

It is crazy for me to think she (we!) is old enough to be getting married, but I could see, even in a short amount of time, how much she has matured and turned into an incredible human being.

I wish them all the best :)

Love, Jennifer

before/after

It is amazing and frightening to me how quickly everything can change. I often think about my life and how different it's become in the past 6 weeks...terrifying really. It's hard to see how wonderful things are when you're in the midst of an easy life. I wish I could go back and warn myself, urge myself to stop waiting for the right moment for things, because really, there is only the present.

I cannot help but think of things in terms of before and after now. Before, silly worries. After, having a hard time caring about the "important" things of life at all. Before, plans. After, empty days. I see dates on things, and think only in terms of proximity to April 5th. 5 days before, how could I be thinking about such silly things? Two days before, how could I have known? It is frustrating to me to view myself in this way, but that's just it....how could anyone have known? I think of food, I bought this before it happened. He's gone but it's not. Or shampoo. I think of all the things I would give up...sometimes it's a game I play. I would give up: every possession. Every piece of clothing. I would give up my new Jeep. Oh? I would give up my entire education to change things...I would start all over. No...I would be in school for the rest of my life. I would amputate a limb. I would live in exile. I would die. It's awful; none of it matters. Every time, I get to the same answer...I would give anything at all, period. It's very revealing of myself, I suppose, but meaningless. That is what death is, despite the depth of your feelings or pain, there is no changing of it. Death is a quiet, locked room. A darkened sky. Turning around and discovering you are alone.

It's hard for me to live with myself most of the time. I am certainly changing. Who knows who I will end up being. We are all changing, taking what was once public and obvious and burying it deep within ourselves. Everyone has their own way, but all of us are making up our minds about things and keeping secrets. I believe that is the only way to move past tragedy. There is much to be said for public healing and letting others help you. But in the end, you must take the heart of it, that little seed of emotion that is inexplicable to others and find somewhere to put it. As much as we all want to feel normal again, no one wants to forget, so we lock it up where only we can find it when we need to.

I like to imagine that he is on a long trip, traveling every country on every continent. He is really only on a trip around the world, marveling at the extraordinary and having too much fun to ever come home. I imagine that he has found what he was missing during life. There is no work for him anymore, only adventure and discovery.

It is a still, quiet life I lead.