Proof I was There

I take a lot of selfies.

Probably more than most people.

Every once in a while, I wonder if someone scrolling past my photos thinks, She sure likes taking pictures of herself.

They're not entirely wrong.

But they're not entirely right either.

It all started with my youngest daughter’s 3rd birthday. She had been completely obsessed with Sofia the First, and if you know me, you know I can't resist a good theme.

In my mind, there was absolutely no reason a three-year-old's birthday party couldn't look like a Pinterest board come to life.

So I went all in.

I spent weeks planning every detail. I designed the invitations by hand, hung banners and balloons, made a homemade "Pin the Crown on Sofia" game (with Abby’s help of course!), wrapped presents, planned the food, and baked cupcakes with frosting in just the right shade of Sofia purple, complete with tiny pearl sprinkles to look like her dress.

The party was everything I hoped it would be. Laughter echoed through the house. Tiny feet ran from one room to the next. The cupcakes disappeared. The presents were opened. My little girl beamed from ear to ear.

The next evening, I couldn't wait to see it all again so I could add it to one of my digital albums. I grabbed my laptop, opened the folder, and started scrolling. (This was during the “ancient times” when photos didn’t automatically live on our phones.)

There was Lilly blowing out her candles.

Her cousins laughing.

Friends gathered around the table.

The decorations.

The cupcakes I'd spent hours making.

Abby helping Lilly unwrap every gift, secretly hoping there was something she could play with too.

I started to smile looking at all the memories that were made. All the things I had imagined came together. I was so proud. 

I continued clicking through…

Wrapping paper scattered across the floor.

Smiling faces.

Happy memories.

I kept scrolling.

Then I stopped.

Not because I'd reached the end.

Because I realized something.

I wasn't in a single one of them.

Not one.

Hundreds of photos from one of the most important days of my daughter's childhood, and there wasn't a single piece of evidence that I had been there.

I stared at the screen for a long time.

I had planned every detail of that day. I had baked the cupcakes, wrapped the presents, decorated the house, filled the treat bags, and made sure everyone else had a wonderful time.

Somehow, I had made every memory possible... and forgotten to leave evidence that I was part of it.

Something shifted in me that day.

From that moment on, I stopped waiting for someone else to think I was worth photographing. If I wanted to remember my life, I was going to have to put myself in it.

And that's exactly what I did.

I started taking selfies—on good hair days, on coffee runs, after presentations I was proud of, when my girls made me laugh, on vacations, at concerts, in my classroom, and during my workouts.

Sometimes it was because the lighting in the car was exceptional. Sometimes it was because I wanted to remember exactly how happy I felt that day.

The funny thing is, when I was growing up, I thought my mom took way too many pictures.

Every birthday. Every Christmas. Every skating show. Every random Tuesday when she thought we looked cute.

I remember rolling my eyes, looking away from the camera, and wondering why she couldn't just enjoy the moment.

Now I understand.

She wasn't interrupting the memory.

She was protecting it.

She understood something I wouldn't appreciate until years later.

Even now, when my mom is with me, she's still the one taking my picture. She notices the moments before I do. She's the reason there are pictures of me laughing with my girls, pictures of me at Christmas, and pictures of me just living my life.

It took me years to realize I wasn't the only one.

Once I saw it, I couldn't stop seeing it.

The mom stepping backward so everyone else fits in the picture. The teacher kneeling on the carpet to capture twenty smiling faces, only to realize she isn't in the class photo hanging on the wall. The grandparent quietly photographing another Christmas morning. The friend who always volunteers to take the picture.

The people who work the hardest to preserve the memories are often the ones missing from them.

Somehow, they're the ones behind the camera... and absent from the photographs.

When I think about it, I don't think that feeling after the birthday party was really about the pictures.

It was the first time I realized how easy it is to become the frame around everyone else's picture-- holding everything together while never appearing in it myself.

I wonder how many of us have a camera roll full of the people we love...

...and almost no evidence that we were there loving them.

That's why I never feel guilty about taking selfies.

They're not about vanity.

They're about remembering.

They're proof that I was there.

That I lived this life too.

Someday, someone I love will look back through those pictures.

I want them to know…

I was there.

Before You Go...

Every story has a lesson hidden inside it.

Here's mine from this chapter:

We spend so much of life preserving memories for the people we love.

Don't forget to leave evidence that you were part of them, too.

My Question for You:

Open your camera roll.

How often are you in it?

Not the posed family portrait.

But the ordinary moments.

The coffee run.

The afternoon walk.

The laughter in the kitchen.

If someone looked back at your life years from now, would they know you were there too?