I take hundreds of photos every month, and most of them don’t get shared with anyone, let alone online. And yet the moments in time that those photos capture are just as important a part of our story as the other images that I do choose to share.
I originally created this blog as a way of documenting our lives, a way of watching the girls grow into who they’re going to be and a way of remembering who they once were. It’s something I want them to be able to look back on as they get older, because memories fade but (digital) photographs don’t. A legacy, of sorts.
It’s easy (and tempting) to only focus on sharing the fun bits, the memorable parts, the highlights and the celebrations. But I’m learning more and more as I continue through this crazy journey of motherhood and life that it’s really important to me that I capture the ordinary, everyday times that we spend together as well.
The pieces of the jigsaw that fill in the gaps to complete the picture.
The tantalising glimpses into who our girls are becoming.
The chaos, the calm and all the moments in between.
This feature – The Moments In Between – is a space for me to share all of those magical and messy parts of our family life that would otherwise just stay in a folder on my laptop, never to see the light of day.
MAY & JUNE
I’m behind on everything.
As I write this, it’s actually the beginning of August and we are 2/3 of the way through the summer season (which hasn’t even fully shown up yet, weather-wise) and 1/3 of the way through the summer holidays. And yet here I am trying to remember things that happened three months ago and how I felt about them. It’s hard.
Things I know for sure: Work has been busy. Life has been busy. Our schedules have been busy. My head and heart have been busy.
This feeling of constantly trying to catch-up has been consistent for the whole of the year so far, I think. It’s certainly ever-present now and it was also definitely there back in late Spring, which somehow already feels like a very long time ago.
There have been several milestones: I celebrated my fortieth trip around the sun! Mimi had her 15th birthday. Ella completed her GCSE exams. We also did a lot of fun stuff – music gigs and treetop challenges and theatre shows and a fair bit of travelling (for me) too. Looking back at it now I feel quite disconnected from it all, as if it was somehow all a dream and none of it really happened, but I know I did my absolute best at the time to be fully present during the moments that really mattered.
I also tried to be present during the moments in between the moments that mattered, because they matter too. Noticing the light, taking in every tiny detail, trying to memorise each unique expression and gesture and conversation. Essentially, that’s what all of these images are – a visual diary of me desperately trying to remember, to give myself the chance to re-visit and re-immerse myself, to feel it all over again and again and again.
This was our story in May and June…
