Have you ever wished that it was yesterday again?  Or last week? Or even just five minutes ago?

A few years ago – before I was a parent or a full-time photographer – I was sitting on a bench outside of my office waiting for Steve to come and pick me up after work.  It had been a depressingly dark and damp Wednesday afternoon.  The bench that I was sitting on was marble and cold, with little drops of rain dripping from the underside.  I had been having a really difficult time that day and felt plagued with troubles that I simply couldn’t figure out.  Questions about my work…questions about my contribution…questions about my life.  It was hard and discouraging and I clearly remember the heavy burden that I felt from trying to tackle all of these questions at once.

The next evening – right around the same time – Steve and I had been sitting in our bed, laughing and catching up on our day together.  There was a warm spring breeze coming in from the open window in our bedroom and the day as a whole looked very different than the one I had endured twenty-four hours earlier.  Not more than ten minutes later though, it turned into the scariest day of my life.  One of the worst.  One that I wanted so badly to forget.

As we endured the flood of emotions that soon followed, one of the things that I remember most was the desire for it to be yesterday again.  I would have given anything for it to be yesterday again…anything to be sitting on that bench again.  Basically, I would have given anything for my problems of yesterday to be my problems of today.  Sitting there, at the bottom of our stairs, curled up in a ball in tears, made me realize just how much our problems are relative…how much they are actually manageable once put into perspective.  And so I wanted yesterday back.  I wanted those problems back because those problems – once put into my split second change of mind set – were actually the subtle beauties of life…the challenges that bring us growth, maturity and wisdom.

I was remembering once again the “problems of yesterday” as I was sitting with Hudson in his room around four o’clock this morning…

Our son has fallen completely in love with his little sister!  He simply cannot get enough of her and has become the most adoring of big brothers over the past month.  He is, however, still struggling with the adjustment in his own way.  Most of which being at night.  Our little all-star sleeper hasn’t made it through the night once since the day we brought Avery home from the hospital.  Instead, he shuffles down the hallway at all hours of the night wanting to crawl into bed with us {bless his heart}.  Sometimes this happens once or twice a night…other times {like last night}, it happens seven or eight times a night.  Throw in the mix a couple of feedings for our little lady and it can make for some pretty blurry day time hours!  It also makes perspective a little harder to maintain at times since I’m convinced that chronic fatigue is the death of all sanity!

And so, in the wee hours of the night…when it feels like I may never sleep for more than an hour at a time ever again…instead of wishing away that terrifying night in our lives so many years ago…I try to compassionately remember the yesterday.  In fact, in some ways, I’m almost grateful for that life changing moment because it reminds me that – given the choice – I would effortlessly choose the challenge of comforting my children in the middle of the night over any number of life’s more ravaging turn of events.  And it makes it easier.  In some instances, it even makes it beautiful {groggy and exhausting, yes…but still beautiful!} because there are, most definitely, many worse things in life than watching the snow fall on your deserted street at three in the morning with your baby curled up on your lap.  There are worse things than being needed.  There are worse things than the sleep deprivation that comes with the two amazing little people that sleep {or don’t sleep!} at the end of your hallway!

There is always something worse than what you thought was yesterday’s problems…

Photo credit: Ewan Phelan, The Last Forty Percent Photography, www.lastfortypercent.com