Happiness in Hindsight

I have tons to do today (who doesn't?) but I had to pause and capture some thoughts that have been coursing through my head.

I've always been puzzled by the quote: "Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember." ~Oscar Levant

I wasn't always sure I agreed with that. I know I've experienced happiness, joy, or delight and recognized the feeling at the time. But the truth of this phrase is becoming more and more clear to me.

Recently, after a 6-mile training run for an upcoming half-marathon, I included the following as my Facebook update: "It's all coming back to me now: long runs are only fun in hindsight."

Because, once the run is over, the side aches and swollen fingers and mind games (just run to that red car, okay you can make it to that tall tree, okay now just one more block...) melt completely away, and I'm left with the distance my legs carried me. And feelings of power and pride. Looking back, that run was a good time.

And that somehow reminds me of that Baz Luhrman "talk-song" from the '90s, which was based on a graduation speech by Mary Schmich. It started, "Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth."

I loved that. I'd turn it up and soak it in whenever it played on the radio of my gold Mazda 626. And I made this phrase my mantra. I said to myself again and again, "Enjoy this. Appreciate this." But how?

Part of me wanted to prove wrong the next part of the song: "Oh, nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked."

And now that the years have passed, I get it. I'm hardly old and decrepit. I'm not quite ready for the rest home. But I get it. It's true.

I couldn't appreciate the power and beauty of youth, not really, not until after the fact. (Which is something I try to tell my 24-year-old sister all the time.) Because along with the power and beauty, there was angst, there was insecurity and uncertainty, there were heartbreaks and hurdles.

But, oh, I tried to appreciate being young. I'd look in the mirror and tell myself to be happy about my lack of wrinkles, the youthful glow of my skin. And I was as happy as I could be about it. But without the context of age and experience, how could I appreciate it, really? At the moment, I was who I was and couldn't imagine being anyone else.

"The question before me...is how to be alive,...as this mere singing wren, who thinks he's alive forever, this instant, and may be." ~Wendell Barry

And all that looking in the mirror would do was make me afraid for the time when those things would no longer be true. If I love my smooth, clear skin now (which, let's face it, was never as clear and smooth as I'm now remembering it), won't I hate it when the dreaded crow's feet and smile lines carve their way into my features? Won't I be desperate to go back?

This has all arisen because of an inescapable fact: babies accelerate time. They do. And this is coming from a person who is NOT unacquainted with the phrase "they grow up too fast." I have a 6 ft. 3 in. guitar-playing teenager living in my house who was a 7-year-old, blond, Harry Potter lookalike just moments ago. (He looked like the original book cover art, not Daniel Radcliffe, mind you.)

So now, with Keira Jane playing at my feet while I type, I tell myself, "this goes so fast, enjoy every moment."And I do focus a lot of energy on watching, listening, cuddling, and trying to memorize everything about her. Remember this, remember this, remember this.

But try as I may, there's no way I can appreciate her enough right now. I'll only be able to see her clearly when I look back. And appreciating her now will not keep her small. The more I tell myself "appreciate, appreciate, appreciate," the more I feel like I'm just watching sand slither through an hourglass.

When I hold my friend's sweet baby, Audrey Claire, almost three months younger than Keira Jane, I find I've already forgotten what it feels like to hold an infant so delicate. My little one has five months of baby chub, dimpled fists that can grab necklaces and hair, fingers that have found their way into her mouth. She's alert and exploring her world, no longer sleeping off the disorienting ordeal of birth. And I'm stunned at how quickly I've forgotten how it feels to hold one so young.

When Keira was teeny tiny, almost every visitor who came to hold her would say, "Oh, I can't remember how to hold them when they're this small." They'd reach out so gingerly, afraid they'd shatter her. "Oh, come on. Here," I'd say and just hand her over. I got used to her tininess so quickly. Yes, she was delicate, but she was strong, hardy, not as breakable as we think.

But that moment of being an experienced mother of a 2-week-old baby is already gone. Now I know how to hold a 4 1/2 month old. And soon, that will be a memory, too.

So I take photos. And I write things down the moment I feel them--doing my best to hang on to things that are so very fleeting. And I'm already grateful that I'm trying to stem the tide of time, that impossible task.

On Sunday, January 23, 2011, at 5:09 a.m., I wrote this in my iPhone Momento app:
"I want to memorize the smell, the feel of her cheek, perfect, plump and smooth, when she's heavy with sleep. I nuzzle the folds of her neck and drink her in."

And then it comes back to me.

Comments

[Travis]

Awesome.

[Karen O]

You have such a way with words, Angie. And you are right. You forget so quickly and you cannot begin to appreciate it enough. My little babies are 4 and 6 and I am already appalled that I have forgotten as much as I remember - which is why i scrapbook :)

[Nathalie]

Wonderful read... yet it made me very nostalgic...

[Melanie K]

Angie, I just have to say you are so right. When I had my second son, I was amazed at what all I had forgotten about my first. The smell! The unbelievable softness of his skin! The sleep breathing ... and then I realized with my third that no, no way to really remember it. You are so exhausted from lack of sleep and you can't bottle it up. I wish! But having started scrapbooking I could write and hopefully catch a glimpse of a memory. Now ...waiting for grand babies! LOL! I have quite a while for those though.

[Maureen]

beautiful post.

[Angie]

So right. If someone could invent a way to bottle it up, theyd make a
fortune! Impossible wishes... :)

[Nikki]

What a great article...this resonates with me! I think often of the sands of time that flow so quickly through the hourglass...my boys' are growing in the blinks of my eyes!
Have you heard the quote "the days are long but the years are short" from Gretchen Rubin of 'The Happiness Project'? So very true!

[FrancineC]

Oh this really hits home with me. I look at Kieran, almost 2 years old and can barely remember what it was like when he only weighed 7 pounds. I think I need to go back and scrapbook some more of his newborn photos :)

[Sarah R]

Yes, yes, yes. I feel like I just read something I wrote - except you wrote it! I have a 9 year old and a 3 week old. I spent the better part of a day last week just holding her and crying because I know how fast she will grow and how I don't want to miss a thing. I've got to document more!!

[Debbie Baillie]

Angie - that was so wonderful to read. You just described perfectly how I (and no doubt many other mothers) feel. When we try to tell people to enjoy their babies because they grow up so fast, they don't always believe us, or get it, but like you say, it's so difficult to actually be in the moment and recognise that this is what happiness or joy is. thank goodness for scrapbooking - our memories retained! x

[lgrande99]

An amazing and beautiful post. Thank you.

[Natasha]

Children are such a precious gift. Mine is fast asleep beside me right now. For whatever reason, she doesn't sleep as well if I am not beside her. Maybe it's because she's 14 months and still breast feeding so she likes me nearby, or maybe it's just how she is. Whatever the reason, when I look at her, everything just seems to come together.

[StefaniM]

Thank you for this! It's beautiful!

[Marie Taylor]

Oh this is beautiful Angie, and totally something I have been thinking of myself lately. It just goes by so very fast.

[Barb]

Aaaaah, the sweet memories. Imagine how I feel - my babies are almost 9 and almost 11!

[Jennifer Larson]

Terrific post, Angie. Those baby pics are so beautiful, I envy your scrapping them! What an ethereal beauty she is. Enjoy, when you're not too tired!

[Colleen]

Gorgeous post, and you had me crying even before you brought my Audrey into it! Parenthood is bittersweet in so many ways. You said it beautifully.

[Angie]

Thanks so much! Sweet Audrey always induces instant nostalgia...she
reminds me just how quickly they change when theyre this small.

[Kristyn G]

Beautiful post, Angie. I was thinking the same thing, about how quickly they change, just this morning. Our little girl is 6.5 months old and this morning when she woke up a little early, I tucked her in bed with us, snuggled up to me on her side and it reminded me of all the nights I spent like that when her colic was so bad those first 12 weeks. But back then she was only about 9 pounds and now she's over 20. And I laughed when she threw her foot up on my hip and stuck her thumb in her mouth. It was SO her right now and it reminded me of how far she's come in the last 6 months.

[Angie]

What a precious image that is! I think baby thumb suckers are SOooo cute!