On the couch with Jasminda

DEAR Jasminda,

MY ex-boyfriend is in many significant family photos such as Christmases, weddings, birthdays and other occasions.

Now we are no longer together, what on earth do I do with all the pictures?

It upsets me to look at them, but I don’t want to forget the occasions.

Rachel P.

Dear Rachel,

This one is very fraught.

You obviously want to remember these important milestones, but you’re still as emotionally raw as Noah and Allie from The Notebook, so don’t make any hasty decisions (like buying a rundown house with a strategically placed piano and restoring it in a metaphorical attempt at rebuilding the relationship).

My nanna, who was known for her practicality, once suggested I cut my ex’s face from family portraits and replace them with Tom Cruise.
Given Tom Cruise’s trajectory, it was perhaps not such a great choice, but this was back in the days when cut and paste quite literally involved a pair of scissors and a Bluestick.
I didn’t, of course. Instead I put the photos in a box and that is where they remain.

Yesterday, which is somewhat serendipitous for this column, I caught up with a group of former work colleagues and one showed me a family photo that celebrated the birthday of her ninety-nine year old mother.

Through some sort of AI wizardry, she had added her father (now deceased) to the photo.

She’d also added another family member who’d been unable to attend.

While the photo was quite beautiful, I couldn’t help but consider it from an ethical perspective.

What happens when histories are magically altered or changed?

How can a person in the future reconcile a photo that celebrates an event where a person is absent (i.e dead!) but (digitally at least) present?

At what point does this ability to recast the truth become dangerous? I think we are already seeing this play out in many ways on social media.

It’s a slippery slope when it becomes harder and harder to distinguish what is real and what is an approximation of real (cast in a way that benefits the creator and potentially harms others).

We can’t change the past.

All we can do is work on our response to it (this is a damn heavy Jasminda, Rachel. Couldn’t you have asked about e-bikes?).

May I suggest you put the photos in a clearly marked box while you are still feeling vulnerable.

Or archive photos with him in them (since they upset you) and keep the photos of those events where he is absent on display.

In keeping with my nanna’s practicality, put partners from new relationships at the extremities of family photos.

Cropping a photo is far less sinister than some of the alternatives now on offer.

Carpe diem,
Jasminda.