For my birthday last month (I won’t say how old I just turned…but it starts with a 4), I wanted to find some old photos of myself. I went to my mom’s house to look through her boxes of pictures and keepsakes.
I found lots of photos of me, but I also stumbled across a bunch of photos with my mom in them.
And I realized something—I had never seen most of them before.
I kept gasping and holding them out to her saying “oh my gosh, look at this one!” Each one was like a little treasure to me.
First, she shared a little bit about how she felt in some of them - how she felt huge when she was pregnant with my little sister and my little brother. How she could see in the background how messy the house was. How she thought her outfit looked dumb or her hair was weird.
But then, something shifted.
She became emotional as she traveled back in time, to what she says is the happiest time of her life. She was flooded with memories, and said how grateful she was to still have these photos. She also could not believe how young she looked, and wished she could have realized at the time how beautiful she was.
When I look at these, I don’t remember if the house was messy or our outfits were perfect and I’m not trying to guess how much she weighs.
I just see my mom.
She’s young, and she’s beautiful, and I’m there, too, and it’s the beginning of my story. So many of these photos pre-date my first memories.
We look so happy together.
There would have been a time she may have thrown these photos away. If they had been taken on a smartphone, and shown to her in the moment, she likely would have said “please delete that.” It made me think about how many moms are doing the same thing right now—myself included. We’re either stepping out of the frame completely, or we’re overly critical of the pictures we’re in. We’re capturing every moment of our kids’ lives, but we’re not in any of the photos or videos.
We’re waiting until we feel better about how we look.
We’re waiting until our house isn’t so messy.
We’re putting it off for later, when things are “perfect.”
But one day, your kids won’t be looking at those photos the way you do. If you’re blessed enough to make it to your child’s 40th birthday (fine, there it is, I turned 40), they will want photos from the beginning of their story. You are at the center of that story right now. They won’t be looking for your double chin, or if you were at your goal weight, or if the kitchen wasn’t Instagram-worthy, or if you were sweating, or if you felt great that day.
They’ll just be looking for you.
Now is beautiful, even in the chaos and imperfection.
Now is beautiful, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
Now is beautiful - and it will become yesterday in a blink.
Future you is out there, somewhere down the road, looking at photos with your children, wishing you could have seen how beautiful you are right now, and how sweet this season really is.