How can your heart grow bigger and break apart all at the same time? Just have a baby, and watch them grow.
My friend Jenn said it perfectly,
“Parenting is a continual process of letting go and welcoming the new”.
Having a baby is the perfect metaphor for time passing. No matter how tight we hold them, and no matter how deeply we look into their eyes, we cannot hold onto time.
Perhaps that’s why I love photography so much.
It is the closest thing we can do, to hold onto time. To at the very least, take a little trip back into our memories.
Haven’t we all tried to stop time? Like, when we were on a date, young and in love, and we knew it had to come to an end, but we just wanted to kiss in the parking lot a little bit longer. Or when on vacation, and the sun and the breeze mixed together in a way, that just made us want to melt into the waves, and never ever worry about real life again!
Children remind us just how quickly time is moving… It already feels like a dream that we felt that first kick inside our bellies. Before we know it, that moment of holding their helpless newborn body to our chest, is a distant memory as well.
“It goes so fast”, EVERYONE tells you this, but still …it’s so so fast. It’s almost too fast to bear.
As I fold up the onesie that was once too big, but is already too small, I say to my baby out loud, “please don’t grow”. But of course, I don’t really mean that. Watching our little ones grow is a one of life’s greatest blessings. But I know, one day, when my little baby is a grown man, I’ll pull that tiny onesie out of the box… I will fall to my knees, press it to my face, and my heart will break and fill with gratitude all at once.
