Chapter 4
The camera caught my eye while I was picking up Brett's dry cleaning.
Best Buy wasn't part of my usual routine, but the parking lot was convenient and I'd noticed their electronics display through the windows.
Something about the sleek black Canon sitting there made me stop walking and actually look.
I'd been thinking about my old journal entries, about the woman who'd wanted to capture truth with a camera lens.
That version of me seemed like someone I'd read about in a book, too distant to be real.
But standing there staring at that camera, I felt a flutter of something I hadn't experienced in years.
Want. Not the desperate wanting of my husband's attention, but the clean, simple desire for something that belonged entirely to me.
The salesperson was probably twenty-five, enthusiastic in that way young people got about expensive gadgets. He explained megapixels and lenses and features I didn't understand, but I nodded along anyway. The camera felt solid in my hands, heavier than I'd expected. Real.
"It's perfect for someone getting back into photography," he said, and I wondered what he saw in my face that made him phrase it that way. "User-friendly but with all the professional features you might grow into."
Getting back into photography. Like I was returning to something instead of starting from scratch.
The phrase made it sound possible, achievable.
Not like I was a fifty two year old suburban housewife having a midlife crisis, but like someone reclaiming a part of herself that had been temporarily misplaced.
I bought it. Paid with my credit card before I could second-guess myself, along with an extra battery and a camera bag that looked professional enough to make me feel legitimate.
Four hundred and seventy-eight dollars for something Brett would probably consider a waste of money.
The thought made me smile instead of panic.
Walking out of the store with my purchase felt like committing a small act of rebellion. Not against Brett specifically, but against the version of myself who asked permission for everything, who made every decision based on what other people needed instead of what I wanted.
Dr. Jones's office felt like haven by my second visit. I settled into the comfortable couch with my coffee and the camera bag at my feet, feeling like I was carrying evidence of progress.
"How has your week been?" she asked, settling into her chair with that same calm presence that made confessing easier.
"Different," I said, which was the truth without being the whole truth. "I bought a camera yesterday. It felt spontaneous and terrifying and right all at the same time."
Her face lit up with real pleasure. "That's wonderful, Lauren. What drew you to that particular purchase?"
I told her about my old journal entries, about the woman who'd wanted to document real life instead of the sanitized version we all pretended to live. About how holding the camera had felt like touching something that belonged to me alone.
"You mentioned photography was something you'd been passionate about before," Dr. Jones said, making notes in her leather journal. "What stopped you from pursuing it?"
What had stopped me? Brett's concerns about money and time, sure, but that wasn't really it. I'd stopped myself. Made his concerns my own, used his resistance as an excuse to put my dreams away where they couldn't disappoint me.
"Life, I guess," I said finally. "Marriage and kids. All the grown up things that felt more important than taking pictures."
"And now?"
"Now I'm wondering if maybe the pictures were more important than I thought." I said. "If maybe I gave up too much of myself trying to be the perfect wife and mother."
Dr. Jones leaned forward slightly. "What would it look like to reclaim some of those lost pieces?"
We talked about identity for the rest of the hour.
How women my age often found themselves asking who they were beyond their roles as wives and mothers.
How the empty nest years could be terrifying or liberating, depending on whether you'd maintained any sense of yourself outside those relationships.
"I'd like you to take that camera out this week," she said as our session wound down. "Photograph whatever draws your eye. Don't worry about whether it's good or meaningful. Just practice seeing again."
She suggested I start a blog or Instagram account to document the process. "Sometimes making our private journeys public, even in small ways, helps us take them more seriously," she said. "You might be surprised by what you discover about yourself when you start paying attention again."
I walked out feeling energized in a way I hadn't in months, but there was something else I could have talked about, should have talked about, probably.
Kimberly's phone call. The woman in the restaurant.
The growing certainty that my marriage was over in ways I wasn't ready to name.
But sitting in that peaceful office, I wasn't prepared to blow up my life with statements I couldn't take back.
The camera felt like enough rebellion for one week.
Friday morning, I drove to downtown Bexley Hills with my camera and absolutely no plan. The historic district had always been photogenic, all brick sidewalks and colonial architecture that looked like a movie set. Perfect for a suburban mom playing at being artistic.
But something shifted the moment I lifted the viewfinder to my eye. The world narrowed to what I chose to see, framed and focused and entirely under my control. I spent two hours walking the same six blocks, discovering details I'd never noticed despite living here for over a decade.
The way light caught the edges of old brick. How the coffee shop owner arranged his sidewalk display with unconscious artistry. The face of the elderly man feeding pigeons in Memorial Park, concentration and joy mixing in his expression as the birds fluttered around his hands.
Each click of the shutter felt like a small victory. Not because the photos were particularly good, but because I was choosing what mattered. What deserved attention, and what was worth preserving.
I set up the Instagram account that afternoon, sitting at my kitchen island while Devin was at practice and Brett was at whatever meeting kept him away from home.
@LaurenSeesAgain felt appropriately hopeful without being completely mortifying.
My first post was the photo of the old man with the pigeons, black and white because it felt more serious than color.
"Finding beauty in ordinary moments," I wrote in the caption. "Day one of seeing again."
It got three likes, probably from bots, but posting it felt like planting a flag. This was mine. This small corner of the internet where I could be someone other than Brett's wife or the kids' mother or the woman who organized charity fundraisers with the right napkin colors.
For about an hour, I felt happy. Creative and purposeful and alive in ways I'd forgotten were possible. I scrolled through photography accounts and planned tomorrow's shooting locations and imagined myself becoming the kind of person who had gallery shows and published coffee table books.
Then I made the mistake of checking my text messages.
Brett had sent his usual Friday update:
"Dinner meeting running late. Don't wait up."
How many dinner meetings had there been in the past six months? How many late nights and weekend conferences and business trips that kept him away from home and close to women like the blonde Kimberly had seen him with?
I sat there staring at my phone, all the joy from the afternoon curdling into something bitter and suspicious. Was he really at a dinner meeting, or was he holding hands across a table with someone who thought his stories about European expansion deals were fascinating instead of tedious?
The camera sat next to my laptop, suddenly looking less like a possibility and more like a pathetic attempt to distract myself from the fact that my marriage was falling apart.
What was I doing, playing photographer while my husband built a life with someone else?
Fifty-two years old and posting pictures on Instagram like a teenager desperate for validation.
I closed the laptop and turned on the TV, needing to watch something entertaining. Sometimes you had to run away from your own thoughts before they destroyed you.
Saturday dinner was supposed to be a family tradition.
Just the three of us now that Kimberly was at school, but still something Brett insisted mattered.
Quality time around the dining room table, no phones, actual conversation.
The kind of domestic scene he could mention to colleagues who asked about work-life balance.
I'd made his favorite meal, pot roast with all the fixings that took most of the afternoon to prepare.
The dining room looked great, candles lit and cloth napkins, and the good china we rarely used.
I'd even bought flowers for the centerpiece, yellow roses that reminded me of the ones in my grandmother's garden.
Brett arrived home at six-thirty, fifteen minutes after we'd planned to eat. He apologized briefly and washed his hands while I reheated the vegetables that had gotten cold waiting for him.
"This looks amazing," he said, settling into his chair and immediately reaching for the wine. "You went all out."
Devin was already eating, shoveling food into his mouth with the speed of a seventeen-year-old who'd burned three thousand calories at baseball practice. He looked good, stronger than he'd been at the beginning of the season. All those hours in the weight room were paying off.
"How was practice?" I asked, because someone needed to show interest in his life.
"Good.” His eyes flicked toward Brett, looking for some sign of acknowledgment or pride.