My iPhone sent me a year in review "Memory" this morning. I used to get those fairly frequently, but maybe my phone knew this wasn't the year to keep hammering things. I almost didn't watch it, but I took a deep breath and hit "play"...and got sucker punched right from the start.
Early...with his sweet nose tucked up in my sweatshirt sleeve. I'd forgotten he liked to do that. I hadn't forgotten about him bouncing up the road. I just hadn't been able to bring myself to watch it. Sound asleep next to me. He felt like cotton. Watching my hand move brought that feeling back in a way a still picture apparently can't.
The videos surprised me. I had needed to free up space on my phone back in the summer and deleted everything up through May. Backed up of course, but I was honestly a little relieved to no longer chance seeing his pictures anymore. There were a lot of pictures of Early.
I didn't think about needing to leave all those pictures on for a year in review "memory". I didn't think about a lot of things this year. Or...I thought about too many things this year. And as much as I tried to think about all the good and beautiful things, what mostly stayed front and center was all the junk I shouldn't have been thinking about and it was a heavy weight that I just couldn't figure out how to set down.
I was/am disappointed in myself. I didn't handle all the 2020 crap very well. So many missed opportunities. So little to show for so much opportunity. So many tears. I feel like I failed at almost everything. Myself, my horses, my craft, my business...
I did show up every day and I took care of my family. On days I'm trying to be kind to myself I think there were times that might have been good enough. And I took pictures. And knowing I wasn't the only one needing a place of respite, I tried to share as many of them as I could. And most days I am convinced that was good.
So here we sit. So many things I wish I'd done differently. I wish I'd not deleted all the pictures from the first part of the year. I'm sure there were pictures of Hank in there. Who else, now gone? What other things do I wish my battered brain could now remember?
But just like the year itself, there was a little gift in this "memory". Tucked deep away in the archives of my phone's battered brain was a folder of videos. Videos that I would probably have never looked at again. Videos that I needed to see. To remember that he felt like cotton.
Even the bad years can be beautiful.