A hard lesson in living in the now

I’m known for being dramatic from time to time… {rolls eyes…} Whatever.

Sometimes the dramatics are necessary. Other times it’s dramatics mixed with true emotion. Add into all of that pregnancy and you have the perfect recipe for “the end of the world”.  And the “end of the world” occurred for me recently.

Over time I realized something was wrong with the earpiece in my cellphone and I could no longer hear people talking to me. Just like anyone else would do who is like me and attached to their phones, I called to get the phone replaced. Within two days a new phone was sent to me. This meant I had to make sure everything was backed up from the phone. All pictures, contacts, notes, etc.

I know I can’t be the only one who lets too much time go by before saving all the photos from their phone right? I mean, I’m a busy woman for heavens sake: I work full time, I was busy packing a condo to move to a house, I was busy having the time of my life over the summer with our daughter and I was just plain busy. The last thing I had on my to do list was upload all of my pictures. The new phone arrived and I decided to go ahead and upload all the photos from my phone to the computer and then set up the new phone. I started the process like normal; plugged the phone in, waited for the computer to recognize the device, pressed a few buttons, talked to my husband and then made a phone call to activate the new phone.

Then it happened. The computer dinged that it was done and I looked and realized the worst thing possible had happened. I pressed the wrong button.

GONE. IT WAS ALL GONE. EVERYTHING. All my photos, all my information, gone. Just gone.

All the photos of my pregnancy progress, all the photos from the amazing times we had in the summer were gone. All of it. In the blink of an eye I lost it all. It took a few seconds to process what happened and when I was done processing I started to cry. Not just a few tears, but that earth shattering, can’t catch your breath, nose running, want to scream kind of cry.

My poor husband didn’t even know what to do or how to console me. At that point I was completely inconsolable and it was all my own fault. I felt like the worst mother ever. All of the photos I had been saving, I deleted. After the tears, after a little food (I am pregnant, give me a break) and after my husband trying everything he could to make me feel better, I went to sleep thinking I can’t believe I did that. I’m such a fool.

The next day I had a lot of time to think and wonder… why did I care so much about something that seems so insignificant. I had to vent to someone and I had to give it one last good cry before I could truly move past it. Naturally I texted a girlfriend. She understood how it felt as it happened to her recently. We have become a generation that relies on technology to help us hold memories in a world that is moving too fast. She was so, so incredibly right. Not even the photos could remind me of the sound of laughter from the summer, the tears I shed when I found out we were pregnant, the countless hours spent singing in the car with my daughter, the small moments of pregnancy that you just can’t capture in a photo. Don’t get me wrong, it still hurts and I cringe when I think about it, but I learned quite the valuable lesson. I needed to stop and reevaluate what was most important in my life.

As the new baby comes and we transition from a family of three to a family of four I hope to live more in the now. I want to soak in everything I can that could never be captured in a single photo. This doesn’t mean my photo-taking days are over, it just means I am more aware of my life and my priorities. I still plan on taking all the pictures I can, probably even more after the baby comes (which means forcing my 14 year old to smile on demand or bribing her just to get a photo.) But I will make more of an effort to put the phone/camera down to enjoy more of those little moments.

Plus, I still need those photos to blackmail my kids when they become adults.