After we carved pumpkins and did our annual pumpkin photo shoot this year we realized that our photo shoots started in 2008 and we had one for every year except 2009. That prompted me to look back through our 2009 photos (thank you Lightroom for your automatic date organization). Sure enough we didn't have one. We took a picture of the three of us the first year we carved (2008), but in 2009 there were no photos of all of us. So I guess the annual tradition actually didn't start until Cora came along in 2010, but I love it just the same and I'm keeping 2008 in there anyway.
As I was scrolling through the 2009 photos I came across a photo of Beau looking out the window at a sunrise. It stopped me in my scroll and I brought a smile to my face. The photo itself wasn't anything special, but it brought up a feeling of joy in me. Not a memory specifically, but just a joyful feeling about that time in our lives. Luke was sitting next to me and I told him, "he said something cute here"...there was indeed a memory buried somewhere in this photo and I sat staring at it trying to remember what he said...something about sparkly I think, but I still couldn't remember what exactly he said. And then I got really excited and told Luke "I think I blogged about this, hang on!"
And that is how I landed back here at blogger. It took me a quick second to even remember the name of the blog, but when I typed it in, sure enough there it was...a collection of stories from years gone by. I typed "sparkly" into the search box and low and behold up popped the exact photo I had just found with a full recorded conversation between Beau and I where he did indeed call the sunrise "sparkly". If seeing the photo filled me with joy, finding this little recorded story had me overflowing. The photo sparked a feeling of joy, and a hint of a memory. The story brought the full memory back. But something about reading my own words brought me more fully back to what I was feeling in the moment. Not only a recap of the facts, but a total recall of the facts AND the feelings.
The thing is it wasn't this perfect joyful moment... I remember the frustration, the power struggle that defined SO many of our days with Beau, and the heart melting feeling when he brought me back to what really mattered. And I'm thankful for ALL of it. Thankful it happened, thankful to be his mom, thankful I was present in that moment, and thankful for the words that allowed me to re-live the moment today. I'm thankful I didn't just write the cute little exchange about the sky. I'm so thankful I have these stories that show the full picture of our lives...the joys along with the challenges and frustrations.
Of course finding this little gem spurred a whole scroll session of old blog posts. Ranging from waaaay back when I started the blog with Beau as a baby, to intermittent posting, to a home for the writing of various memory keeping projects, to once in a while (like very 2-5 years) recap posts, to drafts that were never published. And I felt an overwhelming feeling of gratitude wash over me. A gratitude for every single word. For the long and rambling stories and the short 2 sentence stories. For the published posts and for the pages of partially finished stories that I never published. Just so so so thankful for every single word that was captured. Were they perfect stories? Absolutely not. Within the first post or two I found SO many spelling and grammatical errors. They're rambling and messy and very unpolished. Do I care?....not even one little tiny bit. The only thing I felt as I read was I wish I had more. I didn't ask myself why I would say that or why I didn't take more time to edit, just I wish I wouldn't have stopped.
Of course I didn't actually stop...I've continued writing and memory keeping through albums and various projects throughout the years...some seasons more consistently than others. But it's something about these longer stories living here on this blog that truly transport me back in time. In this season of gratitude I find myself thankful for these stories, and thankful for the previous version of me that took the time to write them. I'm thankful I ignored all the other "more important" things I should have been doing. It's a good reminder to take the time to write the words. Write to remember, write to process, write to capture the present, write to get lost in the story, write to find meaning....just write.
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