Last year around this time, I gave myself a task for 2014. I
decided that I wanted to commit to taking one photo per day from my life and
posting it to Facebook. By the time the
year was over I would have 365 individual snapshots that I could look back on
that would remind me of the highs and lows, the unique moments, and many of the
seemingly mundane happenings that make up the lion’s share of our lives.
It doesn’t seem like a big deal to most people that are reading this column, I’m sure, but there was quite a bit of significance to me.
One of my favorite movies of all time is the 1986 John Hughes film, ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’. One of the picture’s most famous lines is delivered during one of Ferris’ many fourth wall breaks where he directly addresses the audience. He says:
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
I feel like my life has been moving at an alarmingly high rate for a long time – especially since becoming a father. What used to feel like endless waves of free time in my youth has turned into far too little time with my family and friends, and far too many hours spent at work or doing things that fall into that great catch-all categorization of ‘adult responsibility’. Hours turn into days, days roll over to weeks, and weeks blend into months; with only a few vivid memories standing out along the way.
Like Marty McFly in ‘Back To The Future’, I sometimes wish I was able to build a Delorean time machine to make time stand still – or at least slow down a bit.
My ‘Project 365’, as I called it, was my attempt at making some of those fleeting memories more tangible. It was also an exercise to see exactly where my year had gone. I finally took a look at all the photos I have taken for the first time before writing this piece.
There’s a lot of filler – like the time I took the photo of my kitchen clock at five minutes to midnight to show that I almost missed my photo deadline. There are about a dozen pictures of the never ending snowfalls of last winter – always with some expletives added. There’s the funny photo of the contraceptives in the clearance basket at the drug store; not something most people would want to compromise the quality of for a few pennies, I’d wager. There’s one of my ever-expanding bald spot, a few of sights around Moncton, and what photo album would be complete without the odd selfie here or there?
I knew that I would find some good, quality photos I took this year, though. What I didn’t expect to find were emotions that came bubbling back with many of the snapshots I had catalogued. I also didn’t realize that events that seemed to have happened eons ago have been a part of history for just a few months.
There are the photos I took of our neighborhood and my family while in lockdown during the first week of June. There is the incredible monument of gifts that was on display outside RCMP headquarters in the days following the lockdown, and the double rainbow that stretched across the sky in my backyard. There’s a rain-soaked Canadian flag on the day of the Ottawa shooting, the demolition of Highfield Square, and gas prices under a dollar – a sight I never thought I’d see again in my lifetime.
These aren’t the most important ones, though.
There’s that great shot of the storm day home with my family back in February. There’s the first time I took my son fishing. There’s my time in Boston chronicled with three great friends. There’s the first day of school. I have a couple of truly great shots of my kids’ birthdays. A memory of a July night spent with my beautiful wife listening to a Zydeco band on Main Street. Apple picking, Canada Day fireworks, my dog during the first snowfall, Christmas lights and the Santa Claus Parade; they’re all there – along with many more too numerous to mention.
2014 seemed to go by in the blink of an eye, but
all these photographs show me how much life I lived – and how much love I was
surrounded by - in these last 12 months. As someone who regularly comments on
how fast life is moving, this was a great chance to stop and look around for
once. It doesn’t seem like a big deal to most people that are reading this column, I’m sure, but there was quite a bit of significance to me.
One of my favorite movies of all time is the 1986 John Hughes film, ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’. One of the picture’s most famous lines is delivered during one of Ferris’ many fourth wall breaks where he directly addresses the audience. He says:
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
I feel like my life has been moving at an alarmingly high rate for a long time – especially since becoming a father. What used to feel like endless waves of free time in my youth has turned into far too little time with my family and friends, and far too many hours spent at work or doing things that fall into that great catch-all categorization of ‘adult responsibility’. Hours turn into days, days roll over to weeks, and weeks blend into months; with only a few vivid memories standing out along the way.
Like Marty McFly in ‘Back To The Future’, I sometimes wish I was able to build a Delorean time machine to make time stand still – or at least slow down a bit.
My ‘Project 365’, as I called it, was my attempt at making some of those fleeting memories more tangible. It was also an exercise to see exactly where my year had gone. I finally took a look at all the photos I have taken for the first time before writing this piece.
There’s a lot of filler – like the time I took the photo of my kitchen clock at five minutes to midnight to show that I almost missed my photo deadline. There are about a dozen pictures of the never ending snowfalls of last winter – always with some expletives added. There’s the funny photo of the contraceptives in the clearance basket at the drug store; not something most people would want to compromise the quality of for a few pennies, I’d wager. There’s one of my ever-expanding bald spot, a few of sights around Moncton, and what photo album would be complete without the odd selfie here or there?
I knew that I would find some good, quality photos I took this year, though. What I didn’t expect to find were emotions that came bubbling back with many of the snapshots I had catalogued. I also didn’t realize that events that seemed to have happened eons ago have been a part of history for just a few months.
There are the photos I took of our neighborhood and my family while in lockdown during the first week of June. There is the incredible monument of gifts that was on display outside RCMP headquarters in the days following the lockdown, and the double rainbow that stretched across the sky in my backyard. There’s a rain-soaked Canadian flag on the day of the Ottawa shooting, the demolition of Highfield Square, and gas prices under a dollar – a sight I never thought I’d see again in my lifetime.
These aren’t the most important ones, though.
There’s that great shot of the storm day home with my family back in February. There’s the first time I took my son fishing. There’s my time in Boston chronicled with three great friends. There’s the first day of school. I have a couple of truly great shots of my kids’ birthdays. A memory of a July night spent with my beautiful wife listening to a Zydeco band on Main Street. Apple picking, Canada Day fireworks, my dog during the first snowfall, Christmas lights and the Santa Claus Parade; they’re all there – along with many more too numerous to mention.
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but I am making a promise to myself this year to do something similar to my ‘Project 365’ photo album – to chronicle the year that will be. My hope is that anyone reading this may find some inspiration to do the same, and that you may find as much value in your next 365 days as I did my last 365.
Happy New Year, everyone.
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