AUTUMN’S AWESOME BUT WHATEVER THE SEASON, YOU SHOULD FEATURE IN THE PHOTOS
LISTEN UP! Autumn’s awesome but have you got in the shot yet? Did you throw your phone at your other half yet and demand they take a photo of you? Or did you take control and set up your phone camera timer to capture you in the moment with your children? NO, what! You can’t have heard me then, so I’ll say it again. Soon in the not so distant future you will blink and your small people will be huge adults and your chance to have your photo taken with them as children will be gone. FOREVER! Yes you don’t get to go back and do this again, you can’t shrink them. The time is now. NOW!
This is your warning – are you listening!? GET IN THE PHOTO.
That’s my challenge to you. It doesn’t have to be a fancy shoot, it can be a selfie, I don’t care how you do it, just do it. Or you will regret it. Lecture over. As you were!
I MUST PROVE I WAS THERE. I EXISTED. I MUST BE SEEN.
The other day I accidentally stumbled across an old set of family images, and thankfully I actually featured in some of them for a change. It was like looking back on a previous life. This previous life was so full of physical exhaustion, nappies, carrying, wet wipes, healthy little snack packets, hugs that saved the world, reading stories, plasters and irrational tantrums, that I wondered whether I had fully appreciated it at all. Then my physical reaction to these beautiful photographs of my tiny children rose in my throat in a nanosecond. Before my brain could compute what was happening my heart was breaking for moments that are gone forever. I wept hard, fast, loud, aching tears for my babies that are now growing faster that my own emotional readiness for it. I was so glad I was in these photographs as they seemed such a lifetime ago it was good to see myself knee deep in mothering – in the trenches. My children will see I was there too – knee deep in loving them. So whatever the season, Summer, Spring, Winter or even awesome Autumn please get in the shot!
But my heart still breaks at what they are no longer. And what that represents for me as a mother. Then my mind races to questions of self doubt, was I enough for them? Did I enjoy them enough? Play with them enough? Was I enough? Please tell me I’m not alone? The fleeting state of constant change and flux causes me so much heartbreak. Why can’t they stay the same, it’s like a beautiful trauma. You want them to grow strong but you can’t protect them forever.
I’ve turned this pain into beauty by documenting every moment I can but it’s like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it. Wow was deep, a stream of thought that has made my chest physically ache.
I think the reason I take photographs is to document our lives so I know I can relive the precious moments after they have gone. To physically mark a slow transformation.
Because if I lose myself in this journey I will have nothing left once our mutual task of growth and letting them go has reached completion.
BUT, and this is a big BUT. I MUST FEATURE IN THE PHOTOS TOO. I MUST PROVE I WAS THERE. I EXISTED. I MUST BE SEEN. OTHERWISE IN YEARS TO COME THEY WILL ASK “Mum where were you, why can’t we see you?”. Dad was always there. But that isn’t true, I was always there and they MUST see that or what was it all for anyway. So for the last time I promise, then I’ll stop shouting in capitals, GET IN THE SHOT!
Maybe some of this has resonated on some level, maybe not but let’s show them we were there so they never have to ask.
Love Kika x
Oh Kika, knee deep in motherhood reading this made me so emotional. You’re so right, our children need to know we were there!!