Do you ever look at photo albums and feel kinda sad because they bring back memories of things that were happening behind the scenes?

Not the event that warranted the photo, but the things you remember that were also going on during that period of life. Looking back at some of my children’s newborn photos is painful because I had a rough time after some of their births.

Post-partum depression is a terrible thing. I had anxiety and panic attacks after my second child.  Depression after Grace. My husband was clinically depressed after my last child was born. The photos show the fake smile and it makes my heart hurt to remember when he actually mentioned the word ‘divorce’ once.

He was just looking to escape his personal hell and we were able to get him some help, but I will probably never forget those times.

However, I have boxes of happier memories from my children’s younger days and today while searching for a missing receipt from the year 2001, I stumbled on some of them.

My heart smiled as I read a paper my son wrote when he was probably 10 or 11 years old about what his life would be like when he was 21. One of his hopes was that he would ‘be able to get a good Airsoft gun and actually go to a real Airsoft battle with a bunch of people.”

At that age he was very into guns of all kinds. I also found some good pencil drawings he made of machine guns with the specs and history.

In the box were a few papers my older son had written when he was about 13 or so. One was called ‘Chickens’ and he described in detail the chickens we had at that time, his favorite ones and how he would feed them grasshoppers he caught in the yard. It started out like this. “I love chickens, simply put, I love chickens. Chickens are curious birds that love eating, that’s about all they care about is eating.”

He goes on and on. It’s the cutest thing. Then there was a letter he had written requesting a scholarship to a music camp. He gave his history of how he learned various instruments and his favorite artists and his self-taught musical accomplishments. Quite impressive. He did not get the scholarship, but he is still a musician and a music producer.

Despite my terrible organizational and filing habits, I have managed to save some gems. It’s always fun to rediscover them and spend some time going down memory lane, with a smile instead of sadness.