What was I thinking?

I have a digital frame on my desk, and I love it. It's filled with pictures of happy times and special places I've visited—people and pets I adore, people and pets I've lost, and old family photographs that I treasure even more with each passing day.

The other day, a picture of my 18-year-old self popped up while I was working.

I glanced over, and there she was.

The picture was taken on New Year's Eve. I was with my brother-in-law and my niece, who was only a few months apart from me in age.

For years, whenever I looked at that picture, I saw her.

She was 5'2", with blue eyes, a cute little nose, dimples, and a curvy figure.

I thought she was adorable.

And then there was me.

Tall. Skinny. Gangly. Long reddish-blond hair parted down the middle, like nearly every other girl back then. My nose was not cute. It came straight from my Jewish genes. My figure was more coltish than curvy. My hair wasn't the right kind of straight. My skin had blemishes.

I thought I looked ordinary. On my harshest teenage critical days, ugly.

Which is interesting, because other people apparently didn't.

It was a time when people noticed me when I walked into a room. Boys whistled when I walked down the street. I had legs I never gave a second thought to, although apparently other people did.

But whatever they saw couldn't compete with what I saw when I looked in the mirror.

And for years, that photograph confirmed it.

My niece was the cute one.

I was the ordinary one.

Except it wasn't only about how we looked.

I thought she had the better life, too.

My family was dysfunctional. My father was extremely controlling. As a teenager, I wasn't allowed to go to school dances. I wasn't allowed to date.

She was.

She had friends who wanted to spend the night at her house. She did things teenage girls did.

I didn't.

So when I looked at her, I wasn't just comparing her little nose to my big one or her curves to my coltish figure.

I was comparing lives.

And hers looked better.

Of course it did.

I knew everything that was wrong with mine.

I knew hers only from the outside.

I didn't understand that then.

Now, when I look at that exact same photograph, I see something completely different.

Yes, she was cute.

But that other girl?

The tall one?

She was lovely.

Nothing about the photograph has changed.

I have.

And now I look at that beautiful young woman and wonder:

What was I thinking?

Apparently, I spent a good portion of my youth being completely wrong about what I looked like.

I find that both funny and a little irritating.

All that time spent wishing my nose were smaller and my body were curvier, and now I look at the evidence and think, Seriously? That's what you were worried about?

But there's something else about that photograph that I see differently now.

My niece died by suicide years later.

I look at her smiling face, those blue eyes and dimples I envied, and I think about how certain I once was that she had gotten the better deal.

Maybe she did in some ways.

She got to go to dances.

She got to date.

She had girlfriends sleeping over.

Those things were real. I didn't imagine them simply because I was an unhappy teenager.

But I had taken the pieces of her life I could see and filled in everything I couldn't.

I assumed I knew what it felt like to be her.

I didn't.

I don't know what she saw when she looked in the mirror or how she felt about herself. I don't know what fears or hurts or doubts she carried then. And I certainly don't know what any of that had to do with the struggles that came later.

I know only what I saw.

I saw the cute girl.

The girl who got to do things I couldn't, who had the life I didn't.

And standing beside her, I saw the tall girl who came up short.

I couldn't see what was lovely about the tall girl because I knew every insecurity she carried. And I couldn't see inside the other girl at all. I wish I could.

That's what stays with me now when that photograph appears on my desk.

Not just that I was wrong about my nose.

I was so certain I understood what I was looking at.

I didn't.

And that makes me wonder how much confidence I should have in some of the judgments I make now.

Because, while I would love to tell you I've completely outgrown this nonsense, I haven't.

I still look around sometimes and think someone else has gotten the better deal.

I still know the details of my own life while seeing only selected highlights of someone else's.

And I can still find things wrong with myself if I'm determined enough to look.

The list has simply changed.

I no longer worry about whether I'm too skinny. That problem rather efficiently took care of itself.

My nose is still my nose. I've made peace with it.

The hair has changed. The legs have changed. The whistles have long since disappeared.

There are wrinkles and extra pounds and plenty of other things available if I'm in the mood to inspect myself critically.

But now I have photographic evidence that my judgment in these matters may not be entirely reliable.

And then another thought occurs to me.

Maybe I'm still doing it in ways I can't see yet.

Maybe twenty years from now, an 88-year-old me will come across a photograph of the woman I am today.

What will she see?

Maybe she'll wonder why I cared about the wrinkles and extra pounds.

But I suspect she'll see things much bigger than that.

She might see a woman who could still get in her truck and go somewhere she'd never been. A woman who could walk into another room and talk to her husband. Reach down and pet a dog. Call someone she loved. Change her mind. Start something new.

She might look at an ordinary Tuesday I barely noticed and know exactly how extraordinary it was.

She might know which things I worried about that never happened, which things I thought mattered that didn’t.

She may realize which things I took completely for granted because I assumed they'd always be there.

Maybe she will have learned something I don't know yet about the lives I thought were better than mine.

When I look at that New Year's Eve photograph now, I have tenderness for both girls.

For the tall girl who had no idea she was lovely.

And for the little blue-eyed girl beside her, whose life I thought I understood.

I wish I could tell you I finally know exactly what I should have seen when that photograph was taken.

I don't.

Maybe that's the point.

At 18, I was so sure.

At 68, I'm much less sure.

And I think that's an improvement.

Because I'd really rather not wait until I'm 88 to look back at the life I'm living right now and ask:

Suzie.

What were you thinking?