A few weeks ago, in the midst of panic and chaos caused by having too much stuff to do, the OCD kicked in and I decided that I MUST organize all my personal photos on my laptop and iPhone.

I had backed up images from three different iPhones in the span of 3.5 years totaling thousands of images chronicling my life. I put it on my to-do list.

Yesterday, six weeks later, I sat down and spent the better part of 5 hours importing, exporting, deleting, organizing and sifting through each photo. It was quite a jog down memory lane. I relived the day the Kidlet fell and split her chin open – documented by the big bloody butterfly bandage picture I sent to her father. There was the night I first experienced drinking too much and the random blurry photos to show for it; the first time I met my roommate and the day my other roommate and I went house hunting; the day I fell on my face at a wedding in front of my clients and all of their guests documented by bandaged knees; the first time the Kidlet rode her bike and the night my marriage ended. All documented and now all in neat little folders. My life.

I always wonder, in the future, if will someone go through my precious memories and wonder why the heck did this woman take so many pictures of the pier? Why is there a picture of a counter full of alcohol? Or save that picture of a piece of half-eaten banana bread? But for me, when I am old and gray and my memory is faulty, I’ll have 4,859 (and however many more photos I take from now until then) moments to relive and they will make me smile (or cry).