Sarah Beck

About two months ago, I had one of those “awakening” moments.
For the first time in what seemed like years I was home alone.
No husband. No kids. No guests. Just me.
I was so excited to be in my own company.
I promptly shut off my phone, and announced to the Facebook world that I was alone and could listen to whatever I wanted. I could do/watch/not do …anything.
What did I do?
I took full advantage of the vacancy and cleaned the house.
Specifically the girls room. (We have girls.)

I walked into this:

And as every mom would, I thought it was so cute…. Streamers hanging down over a bottom bunk.
I walked out of the room to get my phone. As I made my way through the dining room it hit me. I shut my phone off, and I was not just going to turn it back on to instagram the bed and hashtag it. NO WAY.
As my shoulders fell and my head drooped, the excitement of the streamers left my body. I didn’t have a way to preserve it. To show everyone how flippin’ cute my children are.

Me. The photographer. The girl who, from adolescence, never went anywhere without at least one to two cameras on her person… Couldn’t take a picture, because her PHONE was off.

At that moment. My breath hitched, and I nearly burst into tears.
I couldn’t even remember how long it had been since I took a photograph of everyday life with a camera that wasn’t for someone else, or an event.
Was it a month? Two months? MOST of spring and summer? I didn’t know then, and I still don’t.

The camera used to be an extension of my body. It was always there. Something changed. I don’t know if it’s when I finally took the leap into the new century and got an iPhone. I don’t know if it’s when I started working so much that I just didn’t have time for anything else.
Whatever it was, I’m glad it was only a phase, and my children are back to repeatedly telling me that I simply, “take too many pictures.”

My world from the inside of an iPhone: