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 monthly 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.
SEPTEMBER
At the end of the month when I sit down at my laptop to write some words for this post, I’m never quite sure what will come out. I treat it almost as a journal entry, spilling out the messy thoughts and feelings that go on underneath the surface of the pretty images I choose to share elsewhere.
Writing it out like this and combining the words with the photographs helps me to untangle the complicated and many-layered threads of everything that’s gone on. I can see things more clearly, look at where any knots might remain and figure out how to unravel them so they’re easier to create something better with going forwards from now.
September felt like a little bit of everything. Neil and the girls all succumbed to Covid like dominoes, one after the other (I somehow managed to stay healthy). A new school year started – a big transition for Lola who began her journey at secondary school, and Ella started her GCSE studies. We had some small adventures up big hills and we tried to find some semblance of a rhythm amidst the ever-changing landscape of our days.
September, my favourite month of the year because it’s when summer and autumn overlap, disappeared in the blink of an eye and everything has seemed a bit blurry. I’m glad I captured the moments of it that I did because otherwise I’m not sure I’d remember much of it. And that’s exactly the point of these posts – they tell our story and help me remember all of the in-between moments that were most important.
This was us in September…
