Yesterday the girls and I were eating lunch in front of the television. I was watching a documentary and the girls were eating all my lunch. I stayed and kept watching for a while and the girls went to the back of the house, I thought they were just playing in their room. Then Daisy brings me a picture taken at my wedding reception and London brings me one from Porter's 3rd birthday asking if we still had the game he was unwrapping.
I ran into my room and found two photo boxes worth of pictures spread across my bedroom floor. Negatives in one big pile and all the photo sleeves torn in half in another. I picked Daisy up, changed her diaper, gave her a bottle, and put her down for a nap. Then I knelt down in the mess on my floor and started to cry. How could I ever think it would be fine for me to sit and actually do something I wanted without consequence? London came in and said she was sorry for opening my bedroom door and letting Daisy play in the pictures. She said she would draw me a picture to make me happy again. She drew a snowman standing by a rainbow. It helped.
I tried to put pictures from the right events together in the same pile but there were just so many I gave up. Then I started looking through the envelopes the girls hadn't opened yet. I saw the garden we had at our acre house in Queen Creek and the 4th of July when it was still just Olen, me, and Porter. I saw Olen and Porter, who was barely four, standing in a dirt field that would eventually become our house on Domingo Road. There were pictures of Porter in the hospital after his appendix was removed and our trip to Sea World. What happy memories were scattered from my dresser to the door of my bedroom floor. Some I had forgotten about. I gathered all my pictures and put them back into their boxes on the shelf.
Some days I feel like I'm stuck on repeat doing the same things over and over. But I guess if the memories in those boxes are proof of what I keep doing over and over, then maybe I'm doing something right.
The year, 2003. Just a normal Saturday morning when we had the best neighbors in the world.
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I feel like my life is on repeat a lot too. In fact, that's the perfect way to describe it. Maybe I need to look through some old pictures to remind myself of the same thing.
ReplyDeleteOh man I would have gone ape-wild on my kids if they scattered my photos everywhere.
ReplyDeleteI could spend HOURS looking at old photos. I really need to print mine off like you do. And I loved this day. It was seriously the best, carefree adult days I have had.
I missed the "cool" days to live in those apartments by a few years. Instead, when we moved in, i just got Jacob reminding me every so often that the room Chase and i slept was the same room Quinn was conceived in......Not a pleasant reminder.
ReplyDeleteMan, I can't imagine walking into that... I would've cried too. I'm glad that you were able to gather everything up. Hopefully not too much was ruined. What fun photos to look at and reminisce! How sweet that London drew you the snowman/rainbow picture to cheer you up! I just love the innocence and tenderness of kids!! :o)
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