The Moment Catcher



I'm not exactly sure what moments in my life made me such a "moment" catcher. Maybe it was watching the heartbreak of my dad knowing his brother wouldn't be there to experience the moments that come in the second half of life, maybe it was seeing the depression my mom fell into after her dad died suddenly when she thought she'd have more time later to make trips to visit him, maybe it was meeting my friend's ten year cousin towards the end of her battle with cancer, maybe it was watching too many of my friends lose their parents as adolescent and college students and having to go on and  experience those moments of getting married or beginning their families without their parents there, or maybe it was attending the funeral of our high school classmate.

Either way I've known for a long time every moment counts. So somewhere along the way, I've become a "moment" catcher, someone who tries to find the moment in almost every day that makes it a memorable day even when it's the disaster, this will be funny later just not right now, kind of moment. I kept journals since I was ten years old, logging life's moments, even the tough not so great ones. My obsession with pictures started early in high school in which even then I became known as the one that had pictures of those high school days they tell you you'll treasure forever. Good thing I got the pictures because it's amazing how many things you forget.

Even though still at 33, family tends to anticipate what creative electronically created  photo gift they'll be getting from me that year, this cataloging of moments gift giving habit began as an adolescent, when I would often dig through the boxes of boxes of photos my mother stored in the closest to organize them into creative albums for my parents as Christmas gifts.

Even though I am just now starting to truly understand and get how fast time goes, I anticipated the truth in those words from those older and wiser than me early on. Our life is such a blink in time; now and yesterday are the only guaranteed moments that we and those we love have. I knew early on I didn't want to misuse my time; didn't want to miss life's moments so I'm conscious of creating and capturing them.

As time goes on the more people we lose, and I want to log as many memorable moments with them in this life as I can. Are you a moment catcher too?