Save Your Photos

Soggy Books

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a bit obsessed with looking back at my past experiences. My calendar is a pinned tab on my browser and I use it just as much to look at what I’ve been up to as for scheduling the future. I love looking at old photos or files for the memories they bring up. When I read my writing from years earlier I can still put myself into the frame of mind I was in when I wrote them.

Even after purging a lot of the physical evidence, I still have totes worth of things I’ve produced over the years. Somewhere in my parents’ house are floppy disks with typing and drawing I did as a toddler. And I know I’ve got some of my most challenging exams and papers from college stashed away for when I want to be proud of my accomplishments.

Photos and videos probably make up the biggest percentage of the mementos I worry about preserving. Nothing makes reliving a memory easier than having a snapshot full of the important details, after all, a picture’s worth a thousand words. The switch to digital photography did nothing to curb the build of my collection, especially thanks to my mom who never deletes any bad pictures, even the blurriest and most embarrassing.

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Working. Parent.

I wasn’t prepared to hold both these titles simultaneously. But here we are. And I’m doing my best at juggling them both.

Whenever I daydreamed as a child it was for two different visions of what life might look like. Either I wanted to be just like my dad and work with computers ever day, or just like my mom, patiently teaching us at home and helping us grow. As a member of a single-income household, it didn’t cross my mind as an option to be a working (outside-the-home) mother. That life, in a way, chose me.

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Metamorphosis

In the fields near us, it is butterfly season. A time when metamorphosis occurs right before our wonder filled eyes.

Big beauties like this one, soft buttery yellows, and elusive little white ones fill the skies on our daily walk. Right about now, I’m longing to be the butterfly, complete from my transformation and ready to explore the world. But I can tell that I need to have some extra grace for myself.

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Finding Our Way Together

If there’s an image that sums up my motherhood, in all it’s messy beauty and simplicity, it might be this one.

Me and my son, walking hand in hand through the mud and towards an open way for us to create our own path. Sometimes him leading, sometimes me. Both of us barefoot and breathing in the experience. A little dirty from sitting with our feelings. A little eager for what’s ahead.

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