While I consider myself to be eclectic in music tastes, I’ve never been a country music fan. Sure, there’s some blurry lines with some of the songs almost crossing over into pop, and I could listen to them, for sure. But I’d never say I was a Joey+Rory fan.
In fact, I had never even heard of one song they’d done. I’d only seen them years ago on some Overstock.com commercial, which I loved. Joey’s voice was like an angel, I remember.
So when I started noticing that old commercial coming back in ads on YouTube, I remembered I’d heard that she’d been sick. I thought maybe she’d already passed, and I was curious.
This morning I was up at 4 a.m., as I have been doing for the past couple months (although losing my mojo lately). I woke up with every intention of coming down to this computer and working on something Thrift Diving blog related.
But what ended up happening was me spending 1.5 hours on Rory’s personal blog, watching he and Joey’s life unfolding. And I couldn’t stop reading.
I was struck by how moving Rory’s words were and how he captured their life behind-the-scenes, like the clip he posted of his wife gardening while their young daughter played on a blanket nearby, having just received the news earlier that day that her cancer had come back and it has spread to her colon.
Reading his words and talking about how his wife still out there gardening and providing food for her family, despite the news, because it was important to her, touched me.
But then to click on the video and SEE it happening–was the greatest form of life preservation there is.
Years later, after she’s long gone, and their child has grown up, she will have those moments and those words. He will have them, too.
They’re not just random videos stuck on some external hard drive somewhere–they were memories with context, with thoughts and emotions wrapped around them, making them unforgettable. Making them shareable. Making them eternal memories.
I started thinking a lot about this blog and how much I have lost by not continuing to routinely document my life here. I started this blog years ago when I was pregnant with Kwabena, with the intention of leaving something behind for my kids when I’m long gone. They could read and see what our life was like together, and always have those memories, even when they didn’t remember themselves or no one was there to share the story with them.
But over the years, this blog became less and less important. My time has been consumed with other things, mostly Thrift Diving, which is a rat race for survival in an overly saturated field. Even so, I love it, and I have gotten roped up in it, that I have forgotten how much more important this blog is.
This is the blog that will leave memories for my children when I’m gone. This is the blog that should be given priority every day.
As soon as I get up in the morning at 4 a.m, writing here should be priority.
I don’t care how many people see it.
I don’t care how many pageviews it gets.
All I care about is creating something lasting that my kids will have about their family, how we spent out time together, and what I was like as a person and a mom.
And I have to admit, there’s been so little to write as of late.
I’ve become so focused on Thrift Diving in an attempt to move it to the next level that I have put everything and everyone second. Part of it is because I enjoy it. Part of it is because it’s my survival.
Last week the kids were off school for an entire week because of the big snow blizzard. And I hate to say it but I let them sit on electronics alllllll week. And when I say, all week, it would be harboring on child abuse the amount of time they played. It couldn’t have been good for their little eyes and brains. Their bodies barely moved; just their fingers as they clicked and swiped across their screens and mouses.
And I let them do it so they wouldn’t bother me.
This is how life has been going–letting the kids do their electronics, which they so love, just so that I can do with I want and need to do: work on my blog, or projects, or whatever, without being annoyed or disturned.
As a result, where are the lasting memories?
Where are the special moments that our kids will look back on and remember from their childhood?
Letting them do things that I know aren’t good for them, just for my own sake, is not the kind of mother I want to be.
I say that “FAMILY” is most important, but the truth is that I’ve let my WORK be most important. Family is a good second place.
And so my hopes with starting up this blog routinely and holding myself to posting daily about the “goings-on” of our family is that family will be the first thing I think about as I start my day: the cute things my kids have said…the funny moments…the thoughtful moments…
And I don’t think I would have made this decision if it weren’t for spending hours today watching and reading Joey+Rory’s life unfolding on their blog. It was a bittersweet memory of what I used to do, the care and precision I would have had with savoring our family moments.
But the funny is that at first I told myself that I had thrown myself off course this morning… that I had wasted so much time… that I wasn’t sticking to what I was “supposed” to be doing this morning (which was something business/blog related).
But I see that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing: being reminded of what really matters.
Thank you, Joey+Rory.
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