"I guess you must not have been happy during that time..."
Those words from my mom hit me like a ton of bricks as we flipped through old family albums. Despite my insistence that "I was smiling, Mom! I really was trying to smile!" the photos told a different story.
In that moment, something profound happened – her perception of those photos actually began to rewrite my own memories. I found myself wondering, "Was I really unhappy back then?" The truth is, I wasn't – I was simply struggling with that awkward "camera smile" we all know too well.