<p>Legitimacy </p>
<p>The talking ceases momentarily. The bystanders become the audience - no, not the audience, but your audience. Time accelerates, and memory fails. Somehow, you two come into contact. Your arm around her; her arm around yours. The ephemeral moment passes, time returns to its normal cadence, the curtains fall, and the audience transforms into bystanders once again. </p>
<p>Pang! Your heart throbs. No, its not from self-consciousness. Awash with realization, regret drowns you. Where was that cell phone? Scarfed away in a pocket; absent in the midst of action? How could you have forgotten? Reach down, snap it out, click the shutter, and you - and her - are immortalized, as is the couple on that Grecian urn. Forever in the springtime of your lives, forever in a loving embrace, forever awashed with ecstasy. The breach, or even expansion - there is none; the picture preserves that moment of physical and emotional congruence. </p>
<p>A camera gives rise to the legitimacy that narcissists seek. A few weeks later, when the emotion has dulled; when the blaze, the product of two sparks, has subsided to mere glowing embers, the picture revives it all. One glance, and you are lost in nostalgia. Back in the moment, in that smug superiority; Coras we all are. </p>
<p>A picture makes it all concrete; it provides proof to not only ourselves but also to others. We might share it on Facebook with trepidation; how many people will superficially express their approval? One. Your heart flutters. Two, three, four. You smile. Five, six, seven. You feel almost guilty; you close the window and leave your computer. A few minutes later - twenty. You are drowning in ecstasy. You peruse the comments, and your ecstasy is multiplied by each comment of approval. You carefully examine who has liked your picture; looking not only for who liked it but also who did not like it, and fruitlessly try to make sense of it all. </p>
<p>Ahh. A new girl, but more of the same overarching and underlying themes; for now, its the striving for legitimacy. Later Ill likely dote on the origins of our camaraderie. But for now, Ill keep mentally punishing myself for not remembering the camera. The same old, the same old, but it's what keeps me going.</p>