Hazy days where time crawls and flies
I still stumble through the dance we’ve done a thousand times
Somebody always gotsta drink in the exquisite love story that started with two but now balloons and ripples out to who even knows how many souls, reaching backward in time to roots of who you came from, reaching forward to a gorgeous unknowable future of babies, grandbabies, in-laws, adoptions or strangers on the internet who got inspired by you.
It’s crazy to think about the ripple effect of a family. Of a love nurtured with hearts beating outside yours, of crumbs and birthday parties and anniversaries and a whole lot of regular days piled on top.
Of the thing we call legacy but which is very hard to describe or even wrap our minds around. Because who you come from is bigger than where you come from, and where you’re going isn’t as big as who you’re going there with.
Here’s an open letter I wrote to myself:
Dear future me,
I promise to not overromanticize this too much. I promise not to paint it as squishy baby thighs and the moment at the piano tonight when Vienna played “imagine” with Jared and the world exploded with rightness.
I promise not to remember only the way Cy runs away and squeals with delight at being chased, but also to remember how I cant leave his sight without him losing his mind, to remember how my hands were in fact as full as everyone loved to comment. I promise to remember the tangled sleep configurations that make my eyelids concrete and the way they talk over me constantly so having a conversation with my husband is an Olympic sport and I promise to round out the glittery memories of delighting in beach sand and family movie night with the afternoons that sprawled out like an endless desert (who knows what to do with their kids from 3-5pm? I sure don’t.)
I promise not to forget the mundane ways I clean the same decrepit spaces over and over but I can’t promise I won’t also see even that, even the most disappointing flat gray lackluster realities with rose colored lenses. Your current reality, Future Me, will be like this too—hard and soft, sparkly and stupidly ordinary. I hope you remember it all, and to release the cynicism hucked at you from every direction, I hope you do it with a splash of extra romance—just for fun.
PS speaking of legacy and honoring our future selves, message me for all the deets about family sessions. I want your photos to represent the magnitude of what you’re doing in your four walls every day. Full family session details here. Also, if you’re a family photographer, applications are now OPEN for the fall 2021/spring 2022 Love Soaked family photography retreat + mastermind cohorts. Click here to apply (there’s no obligations, just getting more info to see if it’d be a good fit!)
