Timehop

Do you folks have the Timehop app on your phone? It gathers the Instagrams/tweets/Facebook posts you wrote on this exact date 1, 2, 3 years ago (sometimes my Facebook posts go back 8 or 9 years gasp). It's one of my favorite things to check every morning.

Like... a year ago today I was carrying Bea around for every single one of her naps and the irises were blooming in my Connecticut garden. Two years ago I was just finding out Bea was happening, not believing it might stay this time. Three years ago I was doing endless crafts with HJ at our crazy brown house in Westport and trying to train George not to pee on my bed. Four I was obsessively reading medical journals in my Denver bungalow for the latest on aspirin's effects on recurrence. Etc. 

I wish there were a way to send little notes back in time. Give ourselves some future hindsight. Some love. A promise of good days ahead.  Last year at this time was rough. And it was about to get rougher. And then, well, even rougher. Yesterday I saw a picture of myself from May 26, 2014, a chubby face selfie with chubby face Bea. I was still 25 pounds overweight and trying to stay calm about it, but it felt like no one else was. 

I've got a small frame and don't carry extra weight particularly gracefully. It's very noticeable when I lose or gain even 5 pounds, which is frustrating but just my thing. I probably shouldn't even add that detail because it's mostly irrelevant. I guess it's entirely irrelevant. Because absolutely of course I can't stress this enough it was okay to still have weight to lose in May (this May even!). But I could sense people's weirdness around it. I could tell people close to me felt turned off and worried.

I cried a long time about it yesterday, remembering those feelings, remembering how I felt I wasn't good enough or pretty enough anymore. Realizing how much importance were placed on my looks. Feeling like there was little patience for me to get back. Or, rather, no patience if I never got back. Deep down I knew I would, I knew losing the weight was important to me and would happen. But I'd gained 50 pounds -- 5-0! -- and that takes awhile to shed. 

I lost the 50 -- 55 actually -- and that feels nice and I'm proud. But it mostly feels good because it's just for me. Entirely for me. I'm working on working through that anger and closing up that little hole that happened in my heart. I'm working on softening that time for myself, letting those memories and images -- nursing on the dining room floor and catching a look of disgust as my soft belly squished over my yoga pants -- fade away. Instead, I want to remember the way I'd swaddle Bea every night on my soft white quilt, lay her next to me and we'd both drift off to sleep watching the sun set over the pond. Or planting carrot seeds with Harper up by the cabin after a skinny dip in the pool. Or stomping through the fields as I listened to podcasts, absolutely essential emotional balms for me, and felt fleeting moments of okayness. 

I'm grateful for the pictures I took that anchor me to the good things I wanted to capture and savor, that remind me there was and will always be beauty and richness amidst the rocky stuff. I'm grateful for a life that's kept on moving forward and onward, sprinkled with so many happy moments.