Yesterday, I heard Amanda exclaim that she has a “whole week” to read, read, read! A girl after my own heart. I do believe Santa will place a few new books under our tree and that my poor hubby will look at us and wonder how on earth we can sit for hours on end with our noses pressed to the page. He’s more of the ‘get out and do’ type. That’s okay, skiing is high on the list too. Although I’m the only one who doesn’t actually ski, I will brave the cold and watch them sail down the mountain with a lump in my throat and a beating heart that silences my breathing. The girls did not get their daring from me!
In addition to all of the reading I plan to enjoy, I hope to finish a few writing projects as well. And I’ve started something new, something just for me and my family that I thought I’d share. It’s a book about us. This is not a book for public consumption mind you, but a book to pass on to my children should they ever want to know why the heck we moved to New Hampshire, the struggles we faced when we were first married, and our most heart-warming memories of our pasts. It’s actually been quite fun to remember certain things about my own life that I’ve seemed to have completely forgotten. I’m still trying to piece together fragments of time, but I’m hoping lightening will strike and that it will all get recorded onto the page.
Oh, how I wish I had written more when my children were younger. I was so exhausted and so overwhelmed with motherhood at times that I missed capturing some of the most magical moments of my life. If I could do it all over again, I would carry a tape recorder around with me. Baby books and journals I started long ago are filled with blank pages, photo albums have been reduced to boxes of un-marked pictures waiting for a home, and in the last few years, I’ve been collecting memory cards – an ironic name for such an impersonal innovation. I have tried letting myself off the hook. I still have time to print and organize photos, I still have years of memories to record… and this is how the whole idea started in the first place.
Will my children laugh at my stories or wonder why I bothered to write them at all? Will they find our romantic ideas about living in the country sweet or sad? Time will tell. I do know that it’s important for me to write it all down, just in case. Memories are your history. Write them down before you forget – just a word, just a sentence – anything to keep time from blazing forward as the minutes turn to weeks and the weeks turn to years.
So with this note, and as I prepare to spend the next week enjoying time with my family and creating new memories, I leave you with a holiday wish… I wish you all a very, merry Christmas and a happy, healthy New Year filled with joyous moments you'll want to jot down.
3 comments:
Merry Christmas! : ) thank you, as always, for sharing your grand, complex and simple life, for it seems all those things : )
That snow fall on the wood looks so pretty and peaceful!
I hope you both had a wonderful holiday. Happy New Year!
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