No camera = no sleep

I have a hard time putting into words why pictures mean so much to me. For most of my life it was just my mom and I... which means she knew all the stories and memories about me. When she died, I felt like I lost my history. I felt like I just materialized out of thin air. Pictures to me are a way to combat that. They are a tangible piece of my history... and more than that, my sons history. They record moments that I may (and probably will) forget about. They bring up the emotion (happy, sad or angry) that I may have forgotten. To this day I wish I had someone take pictures and video at my moms funeral. I can't remember who was there or what was said.

Pictures are everything to me.

In a fire, the pecking order goes 1. {husband, child, dog}, 2. hard drives. We just invested in a hard drive to serve as second back up which will be housed in our fire proof box. I have even toyed with backing up again and leaving that at the in-laws.

Obsessive... yes, I am aware.

All that to say that the loss of my camera kept me up most of Saturday night. Thoughts about the specific pictures I had taken. Self portraits of Laura and I... each of us in front of the Washington Monument... awesome handmade shirts people had made for the walk... the crew members and motor crew... and on and on.

Everytime I thought of another specific picture, I cried. Which stuffed me up... which with laying on my side with no elevation made it even harder to breathe.

So I would will myself to stop and forget it.

Then my mind would drift back.... and the cycle starts over.

Somewhere in there I remembered the pictures I had taken on Thursday. My son and his friend at the park playing in the leaves... and the videos of them running and jumping in the piles... and the laughter.

Yeah, I lost it.

Finally after all the tossing and turning, crying and sniffling one person can do, I fell asleep. I estimate another 4 hours of highly interrupted sleep.

My bed never looked so good.