My Sister Taught Me How to Take 0.5s

What hobbies have been passed down from your family?

My Sister Taught Me How to Take 0.5s

My sister taught me how to sound like a windshield wiper on seven hour car rides.

One hour in, we simultaneously barrelled over in silent laughter from the backseats, trying not to wake my mom up. With each swipe of her finger through her camera roll, my sister revealed 0.5s of me reaching levels of scandalously hideous I didn’t know were even possible. My laughs turned into wheezes, which turned into increasingly squeaky windshield wiper noises until my eyes became blurry with tears and I ran out of air. As we verged on delirium, the faulty seatbelt half-choking me and my blisters from hiking seemed to disappear.

“You should let me take some of you, too,” I said after regaining my breath.

My sister tsked. “You don’t know how to take 0.5s right. You’re just gonna make me look ugly.”

And so I bided my time, waiting for the moment she fell asleep.

Four hours in, I proudly took my freshly woken sister through my photo library featuring elongated Thanos chins, comically large glasses paired with bulbous noses, and triangle- or deformed rectangle-shaped heads warped through perspective. 

“Some of these aren’t bad. Mine are still better though,” my sister said as she pulled up her camera app once more with an evil grin.

My sister taught me how to be authentic and unafraid.

When facing off in 0.5 battles exposing double chins and Megamind foreheads, she showed me that bad sides can still become works of art when captured with the right camera. Though she still reminds me to sit up straight when my back is slouched (usually less than kindly, occasionally involving references to a gorilla) and calls me out for “being a bum”, her pictures of me allow us to celebrate and laugh away our insecurities for a moment. She’s someone who knows most of my flaws, and doesn’t hesitate to point them out either, but loves me the most despite my weaknesses. 

On days where I feel anything but pretty she assures me that I’m perfectly fine, and I do the same for her. Though it’s still difficult to give yourself the same grace you give others, my sister has shown me how to try. When taking pictures with each other, the consciousness I carry around other people evaporates, and intentionally being silly helps me become more comfortable existing in my body.

My sister told me not to mind the old ladies judging our photographing techniques (obscenely close angles, lunging and squatting positions disregarding all form we learned in PE), and to always laugh my real laugh. She told me to hold my head high while she’s taking 0.5s of my chin and to keep it there no matter what. By zooming out to 0.5, she showed me her perspective and helped me find my own. 

My sister taught me how to encapsulate a moment’s joy.

In her camera and in mine, we capture memories of each other. Using the angles she taught me, I learned how to photograph giggles instead of practiced smiles. I learned that sometimes a blurry photo can tell even more of a story; a shaky camera is simply the signature of a cameraman convulsing in snorts, a moment of shared laughter captured on a still screen. With each click of the shutter, our silliest faces carrying our most genuine smiles become immortalized, a memento more powerful than any souvenir.

She showed me how to preserve every peak and valley of mountain hikes, and how to brave through the highs and lows of life. My sister taught me how to take 0.5s and how to cherish them.