This week, during one of my precious kid-free blocks of time (thank you, preschool!), I decided to tackle a task that had been looming over my head for months: cleaning out my email inbox.
I may not qualify for a Hoarders television show based on our house, but my electronic world is a hot mess, my overstuffed inbox bursting at the seams, full of items that I need to take action on, file away, or delete.
With a hot cup of coffee nearby, I decided to tackle my 300-plus emails the same way I tackle all "real" paperwork that comes into our house: mercilessly. I was hitting delete, delete, delete, and came thisclose to deleting an email from a photographer that had visited the kids' preschool last fall.
My hand hovering over my mouse, I had a flashback to that photo shoot, a day when I had managed to get the kids to their sitting relatively on time, but had barely had time to shower myself, let alone style my hair or do a decent makeup job. I had envisioned being able to watch the shoot from afar, mercifully out of range of the camera. But Molly didn't want to be put down, Joey didn't want to smile, and Clara wasn't listening. So, despite my vigorous protests, the photographer herded me onto the same bench the kids were perched on.
From that point on, the pictures were, in my mind, doomed for the garbage can. And when the company emailed them out later that week, I cringed as I scrolled through the slideshow, seeing only the circles under my eyes, the hair that was still wet from my shower, and those extra pounds I was carrying. Shuddering, I quickly closed the slideshow, pledging to buy under-eye concealer, do a better job of styling my hair, and get to the gym more often.
But I kept the email just in case I decided to return to it later and salvage some of the photos. Maybe, I thought, some could be saved if I cropped myself out.
"Later" turned into twelve months later, and looking at the subject line of that email, my mind returned to that awful slideshow. Were the photos really as bad as I had first thought? Before hitting delete, I decided to take a second look.
But this time, I was viewing it with a different perspective. I had just stumbled across this article about a mom who had vowed to make a concerted effort to "stay in the picture."
"I'm everywhere in their young lives, and yet I have very few pictures of me with them. Someday I won't be here -- and I don't know if that someday is tomorrow or thirty or forty or fifty years from now -- but I want them to have pictures of me. I want them to see the way I looked at them, see how much I loved them."
For a mom who usually has a camera in her hands, and who chronicles her kids' lives so religiously, I only manage to sneak into a photo every six months or so.
So, taking a deep breath, I opened up that year-old slideshow, determined to be less critical of myself, and more open to seeing the photos as a true snapshot of a time in our lives, however imperfect.
And from a year's distance, the pictures took my breath away. Yes, I still saw the bags under my eyes, and yes, the wet hair was still there. But this time I also saw the mom that I was a year ago, with 18 month-old Molly, still very much a baby, nestled on my hip, and Clara, a newly-minted 4 year-old, snuggled in the crook of my arm. I saw myself looking tired, yes, but also happy.
And that, more than anything, will matter to my kids when they, in turn, dig these photos out of storage, or page through them in a photo album when they are adults themselves.
"I am not perfect to look at and I am not perfect to love, but I am perfectly their mother." - Alison Tate
1 comment:
You look fab.
Post a Comment