You know those days where nothing goes your way? Thing after thing after thing goes wrong and you can’t see the possibility of anything going right? I just lived that day.

I started by planning for this day 14 different ways, the variables kept changing. There were meetings to rearrange, much to the displeasure of my employer, appointments to manage, kids activities to squeeze in and an evening appointment at the gym to keep. I planned, changed plans, changed plans again and thought I had things all worked out.

Surprise! My mom came the night before to join us in our first activity of the day. Preparing for a visit from my mother requires time and work and cleaning. She’s a meticulous woman and doesn’t understand my, more laid back style. I had exactly 2 hours to prepare for her arrival at the exact same time that the Princess needed to be delivered to and picked up from dance lessons. Yikes.

I survived that event. We woke to attend to our day. We started the day taking my favorite boy in all of the land, my brother, to the hospital. He was to have his heart jolted back into rhythm (with the paddles) first thing. This was scary on so many levels. We weren’t sure the blood clot had dissolved yet; we didn’t know if the procedure would work. There was a tiny possibility that something could go wrong. And it’s his HEART! That’s cause for worry.

After successfully seeing that through to completion, with great results, I was off to a work meeting. This is an annual event to get a large group of people motivated toward common goals and reset standards for continuity. The meeting had three sections. In each section I felt more and more inadequate as I realized that I have work to do to catch up. My ego is now sufficiently bruised.

Or so I thought, at the first break I get a text from my girl asking “who’s picking me up from school?” SHIT! With all of the schedule adaptations I forgot that I was no longer available to pick her up. I phoned a friend. Not available. My mom? Already on her way back home. My brother? Resting, couldn’t reach hum. Finally, the pirate (my dad) can get there only a few minutes late. I’m clearly not winning parent of the year after this one.

Speaking of the pirate, he sends a text after dropping off the girl that the surgeon wants to further amputate his leg to above the knee. WHAT?

I’m still in this meeting. I’m overwhelmed with emotion and worry and my own inadequacy and I’m rapidly reaching my breaking point. I keep it together to the end of the meeting, I get to the car and literally throw my hand up and say, outbound, “I surrender”.

In that exact moment, I was looking to the sky, arms in the air, ready for tears when a calm washes over me. My next thought is to finish my sentence. “I surrender! it all to you God.” And, I prayed. Right there in the street, I found God had been waiting for me the whole time.

Don’t be fooled by the number, I’m not even close to finishing my 40×40 list. But, as I was working on #39, Sort The Baby Pictures, I had an interesting series of thoughts. I have these boxes of pictures spanning more than my lifetime. Until recently, they were all a jumbled mess. My baby pictures were next to pictures from college that were next to pictures of my recently married Grandparents at their farmhouse. There was no order.

So, I went about sorting my memories from my parents memories and came up with the beginnings of a system. At the end of this process I still had boxes full of pictures, but there are now in categories that define 3 distinct periods of my life. Some of the cast of characters is static throughout. You see lots of pictures of me with the Fairy (we’ve always been close). There are pictures of random zoos that we’ve visited throughout the years. (Important note: all giraffes look the same, make sure  you put people in the pictures for time and place reference.) And there are people whose names I don’t necessarily remember. While the subjects of the photos are sometimes a bit fuzzy to my memory, the feelings I had at the time of each event are quite vivid.

In box 1 we have pictures of my distant past, photos of my childhood (and many things that predate my childhood). You can see the easy contentment of my youth. I was very happy in my sheltered little town. You can see it in the softball pictures to the prom photos. By all appearances, we are a very happy family. As with most things, I didn’t learn until later about how my Mother found it difficult to stay in that small town that I thought was beyond wonderful. But, you can’t see that in the pictures. In the box are smiling faces, family reunions, birthday celebrations and untarnished content.

Box 2 brings us to the years between college and motherhood – some of these should not be seen by children, lest they repeat my mistakes. But, all of them represent genuine joy. I met some of my dearest friends during this period in my life and certainly learned the difference between an acquaintance and a friend. I am still in contact with many of them (beyond facebook even) and others have lost touch. All, however, bring a smile to my face as I remember sharing some of my fondest memories with this group (or these groups) of people. As with most college memories, some are fuzzier than others, but all have the same polish that only time can provide. It all seems so fresh and fun in my head. Long forgotten are the stressful exam weeks, the roommate drama and the long nights working to make ends meet.

Box 3 is very, very full of pictures of the Princess. I have roughly 1,000,000 pictures of her first few months. I have more pictures of this amazing, beautiful girl in her first 4 years than I do of the last 4 combined. (Note to self: buy new camera, I need more recent pictures.) I hope that she has been as happy as she appears to be. When she looks back at these boxes one day I hope her memories are all of the fun she had. I hope, in short, that I’ve not screwed this up too badly. I want her to feel what I feel when I think of the past – few regrets and great joy for the experiences.

#39 led me down memory lane in a way I didn’t think that it would. I expected to very neatly categorize pictures chronologically and move on to my next project. Unexpectedly I ran into my past, in three parts.