A lifetime

I keep feeling like I see my life flashing before my eyes.

I blame GooglePhotos.

Every photo I've taken with my cellphone is there...   not lost...  It's only the past 5 years, but there are a lot of photos.  Some are now treasures, but some are just pocket-photos!!!!   So I scroll through, looking for a photo that can show when we built the new back deck, to answer the question for the insurance adjuster.  And each photo is bittersweet.  Sweet, because I have it, and because it captures a moment in time...  but bitter, too, because everything in a photo of the house is now gone, needing to be replaced. 

I can still close my eyes and picture the rooms ... but the photos help.  And I worry that I'm getting old, and my memory may be going.  How I am ever going to remember everything I need to remember?  What did we really have in that room?  And does it even really matter...  I used to write things down, so that I'd be able to look back.  And now, it's up to me - my responsibility to remember, to ad lib, without a script. 

I see photos of recipes - thank you, everyone who ever requested a copy of a recipe!  Most of my favorites are there, including my Apple Crisp recipe that is in Mrs. D's handwriting.  The recipe we decided was Aunt Mabel's cookies (the taffy crunch one!) is there, along with the Christmas cookies we usually make.  But I digress...  rebuilding my cookbook will happen, but there are so many other things to rebuild first. 

There are photos of school events, summer trips to visit family, college move-ins, and vacations.  But suddenly, those casual photos from home are the most poignant.