Faith & Family
Indistinct
I’ve dedicated several hours the past couple of days to organizing our family’s pictures into a storage container I was given for Christmas. This see-through box houses sixteen plastic cases designed for the preservation of about a hundred 4x6 photographs each—so, 1,600 total. As I’ve started (the extremely tedious process of) combing through more than a decade’s worth of photos, it’s occasionally been challenging recalling specific details and dates, but the project’s coming along, and how nice it will be having our pictures arranged chronologically in a fancy box instead of randomly stacked in our closet. (By the way, when did printing photos become some bygone, Little House on the Prairie- era thing? My teens have walked by more than once and jeered, “It’s 2026, and Mom’s organizing ‘physical’ pictures.” Excuse me—what? An iPhone is hardly going to be the sole keeper of my memories, thank you very much. This graying millennial is perfectly content still utilizing the likes of photo albums, memory cards, and those—usually blurry, but that’s beside the point—wallet-size, instant camera pictures. Hmph!)
Halfway through the afternoon yesterday, though, as I stood there debating things like whether or not a picture of my son outfitted in a jersey and cleats was taken at a Little League game in 2019 or just after we moved in 2021, it occurred to me that anyone looking in might think I’d accomplished little with my day. We generally measure productivity from a visual point of view, and, considering the dirty cups and silverware heaped on the counter a couple of rooms away and all those muddy footprints still caked on the floor from last Tuesday’s rain, the only natural conclusion was that I hadn’t done much—never mind the hundreds of photographs now neatly ordered in a box.
I used to berate myself for similar reasons years ago while still settling into my thirties and a mom to kids who were likewise much younger. It didn’t matter that I’d spent hours tending a new baby or cleaning up the same broken crayons over and over again: In my mind, if the place wasn’t clean, I hadn’t done enough.
