update in process.

There is nothing more irritating than having to update my phone.

It seems that there is an update every few weeks just as I get the hang of the latest version of an app that is supposed to make my life easier. Keeping up-to-date is a nuisance. A rather modern nuisance.

In a world where we are expected to be in constant update mode, I really appreciate instances where updates aren’t needed…

• I have had my Canadian cell phone number for the last 20 years – actually, it was my husband’s first cell phone number when our daughter was born.  We were so excited to upgrade from a pager.
• I have had the same email address for 17 years.
• We held our previous address for 10 years.
• And as you can see from the blog banner above, I haven’t updated this blog in 7 years.

My blog banner above is a picture of my family in the summer of 2010.  A friend had taken photos of the family at our local beach.

I had a 8 month old, almost 3 year old, 5 year old, 7 year old, and 12 year old.

These are my kids today:

To be honest, this picture was taken August 2017.  This is the most recent picture of the kids that I have with all five of them together.

I was talking about this the other day with another mama, how I needed to update the banner picture.  It was a little ridiculous continuing to have it up as it is not representative of the most updated versions of my family.

But the crazy thing is that I often still see them as those munchkins carrying balloons.  As hard as I try to see them for who they are in front of me – an almost 20 year old, 14 year old, 12 year old, 10 year old, and 8 year old – I can’t help but wax nostalgic especially when I come to this space and try my best to update it.

I read through posts and remember them as the “littles.”

This blog is an online scrapbook of my life as their mom and our life as a growing family. 

I haven’t been ready to move forward here because it’s been a beautiful place to rest and to look back although I haven’t been able to do that after our move because the feeling of longing overwhelms me. A longing for a time and a place that no longer exists and a mixed feeling of gratitude for those times and wishing I could experience it all again but with a wisdom knowing it would come to an end sooner than I thought.

After taking a long hiatus from writing here, I finally visited the blog.  I typed in the address and saw the banner.  A banner I hadn’t seen in almost 10 months.

I looked at the picture and for the first time, I no longer felt that longing.  I had just received a text from my oldest daughter that made my heart accept where we are – a new time and place to create again.

I am finally ready to update it. The purpose of this blog is to journal.  This banner stops me from looking at my life right now or even to dream of what our life can look like.

But I will replace it because it is, in the older sense of the word, obsolete.  When ob means “away” and the verb solere means “to be used to, be accustomed.”

I had become used to this picture and used to being that mother in the picture while I had already updated that version of me and motherhood years ago.

There is still a definite use for this picture, in a photo book to be looked at when I want to sit with the kids or possibly sit with my grandkids and reminisce.  It doesn’t get deleted forever or tossed out like an old cell phone.

However when I come to this blog, I can’t get used to seeing them like this in a place where my writing is dependent on what is happening NOW, when my whole premise for parenting and homeschooling is focused on who they are NOW.

Today is not the day to update that photo but at least I know that I am ready to do it.

One day you will visit here and wonder if you are in the right place.

We live in a world where we can update our status every second of the day, living in a rapid pace of change.  I am aiming for somewhere in between this banner picture and a 24/7 ticker tape of my family’s comings and goings.

On a certain level, every story I share here belongs in the past, having already happened which is why it becomes a story for me to tell but I want it to be relatable to the latest version of us, of them, of me. It will be from an observer who lives in that moment of the experience and who only reserves the wee hours of the morning to sit, write, and look back.