The Biggest Mistake

The contributors here at Focusing on Life come from different parts of the country, are different ages, have families or live alone, some of us work and some do not -- in other words, we come from all walks of life and have come together because of our love of photography.  We wanted a broad range of life experiences to go into this blog and I think we have achieved that.  But it is funny how often we seem to think of the same thing that we want to post about.  I guess that is to be expected with a bunch of like-minded women, regardless of where we are in our lives.

My  post for this week was already written when I read Leigh's post last week describing her experiences as a working mother of young children -- the same subject I was planning on but from the opposite end of the spectrum.  I am the mother of three grown sons and am looking back with nostalgia to the time she is experiencing right now.  I want to share an Anna Quindlen quote with you, one of my favorite quotes of all time:

"But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this.  I did not live in the moment enough.  This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swingset on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1.  And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.  I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing:  dinner bath, book, bed.  I wish I  had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less."

I wasn't a working mother and I still feel like it all flew by in an instant and I don't think I did it well enough, or was in the moment enough, or remember enough. But maybe that's the way it is, being a mother.  You never feel that you are doing or could have done it as well as you wanted to.  If I had a million dollars and someone offered me the chance to go back and do it all again, knowing what I know now, I would hand over that million without a second thought.

So there you have it -- two sides of the same coin.  I hope wherever you are in this journey you will share with us your thoughts and experiences.

And don't forget to keep posting your "The Sky's the Limit" shots to our Flickr group and tag them with TSTL if you would like them considered for an In Focus selection.