Hey! That's me, Woman!

I am sitting at my wooden desk.

And looking up at a picture on the wall, a 3 by 5 of me as a little, little girl.  Maybe three years old?

In the picture, I am wearing a puffy, puffy lavender coat, zipped all the way up.  I wear purple pants and a lavender beanie hat, too.  I am sitting right next to a picnic table crowded with picnic supplies.  I sit in a yellow, plastic foldie chair, and my tiny, chubby hands grip the metal armrests of the chair.

My face is plastered with a lightweight and free grin, from chubby cheek to chubby cheek.  I lean slightly forward, not resting all the way in the chair, as if I can't contain my excitement with life.  My eyes are squinted and I see faint bags under my eyes.  But the young, child version of them.  My teeth are gapped, and my smile is an inch open.  My nose is scrunched up with the height of my smile and my round cheeks.  I stare off at something to my right, and for some reason it makes me so ecstatic.  Incredibly happy with who I am, where I am, and what life is made of.

I love to be happy.  Sometimes it's not the easiest thing to do, though.  I often get too stressed and worn out.  But looking at this photograph, I remember why I am here.  To be happy.  After all, one of my first words was "happy".

This isn't the picture.  But one sorta like it.  

-Mallory