There’s an app that we’ve been using since Emilee was born called Family Album, that has a “memories” function which will show us photos that were taken “on this day” from years past.
This happened the other day, with it showing me a photo of Emilee from 4 years ago, when she was two years old. People always say that “when you have kids, you blink and they’ve grown up”. But, seeing this photo of my child, from what I could’ve sworn was just yesterday, made it real. It just feels different when it’s your child, and it’s hard to explain that to others that don’t have children.
I’ve been really stuck with that tension lately, and I realized it’s just been kind of gnawing at me.
There’s a blog that came up several years back, called the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. The whole premise of it is the author would create new words to describe feelings that people encounter. The first one I ever saw of this was, sonder, which is the realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.
I hadn’t visited this site in some time, but as I’ve been wrestling with these emotions, I found myself journeying back to see if there was a word that could describe how I felt. Thankfully, there was.
Morii | The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
morii: the desire to capture a fleeting experience.
We live our lives in moments: in those rare experiences we stop to notice and carry with us, in the hopes of stringing them together, trying to tell a story. But even in the moment, you can already feel it start to fade. So you try to capture it and convert it into something that will last longer than just a flash…
…A part of you knows you can’t take it with you. But that doesn’t stop you from trying. It doesn’t stop you from wondering, What if I could stay just a little longer? or What if we didn’t have to go? We try to capture moments as if we’re afraid they’ll escape. But they’ll get away eventually.
This is the purest explanation of how I’ve felt. It feels like I will sit in a moment with my family, maybe at Christmas time, maybe while watching a TV show, maybe while just sitting outside, and realize how much I love these moments. And yet, even in the moment, it’s leaving me. And I can’t quite capture it like I want to. And I hate that at times.
I absolutely love the person that my daughter currently is. Her funny, goofy, AuDHD self. But I equally miss the person she was as at 2 years old, as well as all the years in between birth and now. Instead, I’m left having to say goodbye to who she was, knowing that I can only live with who she is currently, and I will only ever meet the person that she will become.
I think other parents can absolutely understand where I’m coming from: I want her to grow up, while at the same time, I don’t. Because as she grows up, it means that I’m just slowly letting go of the little girl that has become my entire world.
And right now, I’m also her entire world. And yet, it’s inevitable that at some point she won’t need me, that I won’t hold that spot anymore. I know this because that’s the normal progression of things. My parents are not my world anymore, yet they are still very much a part of it, and I love them even more than I did when I was a child. The paradox of being a parent is the fact that if we’re doing our jobs right, then our kids need us just a little bit less each day; we are creating our own obsolescence with the very act of trying to be a responsible parent. I’ve seen others describe it as the “slowest heartbreak” and I couldn’t agree more. This incredible sadness that where you’re at currently is fading the moment it happens, while also being incredibly excited about what comes next.
I just wish sometimes I could stop and pause it and sit with what it is. No feelings of things moving faster than I can handle. Just the ability to hold it on my terms and to let go when I’m ready. And yet, that’s not how this life works. I’m faced with the stark reality that as my daughter grows up, so do I. One step closer to the grave, one step further from who I was as a child; a constant reminder of my own mortality, as well as of those around me.
The thing is that all the little daily annoyances: the constant asking “why are we doing this?” or “where are we going?”, the meltdowns over small things that cause us to be late getting out the door, the dirty dishes left on the table that I’ve already asked her twenty times to clean up…
One day these won’t be there anymore, and I fear their absence will be felt much more profoundly than I can imagine.
Their presence reminds me that I am blessed to have the role as a parent to this child, and that I am absolutely, wholeheartedly, and desirably needed at this time. That at this moment, I am her world and I need not shrug that off so casually. Because right now, I’m not competing for her time. I am not having to work to stay relevant in her world of Spiderman, dance parties and bedtime stories. I can simply come and go within it as I please. And I fully admit that I’ve been blindly trading that privilege for “just a little more time on my phone” or to just get “one more thing done at work”. It’s a constant tension, between being present with my child, fulfilling the responsibilities of an adult, and simply trying to find time to recharge. It’s not easy, and it’s not something anyone really prepares you for. How can they? It’s just a symptom of being human.
I am thankful for that struggle. I’m thankful for the times that Emilee pushes my buttons to the max. I’m thankful for smudged windows, scattered toys, and marker-stained clothes.
They’ll get cleaned up. Eventually.
But instead of asking her for the thousandth time why the mess she’s made in the front room still isn’t picked up, I’ll just go help her. Just so I can have a little more time with my baby girl before those same toys end up in a dusty memory.
