Have you ever noticed how once you start crying it can be hard to stop?  I started on Sunday when I heard that an former coworker of mine had died.  She'd had a difficult life and I'd hoped that things might've gotten better for her and her family.  I continued crying through Monday at my father in laws.  I wish that all divorced families were able to get along-but sometimes hurt feelings last for years and years.  It's difficult for my husband to choose where he will stay when he is there-and so he procrastinates.  We drove up to his father's house on Sunday-and I figured that we'd drive the half hour back to meet up with my sister in law and her children.  Unfortunately, my father in law refused to go back there-so we didn't get a chance to say goodbye.  So the tears started flowing again-off and on for a good half a day. 

I blame the long interrupted nights without sleep and the difficulties associated with traveling (especially to the relatives) with a newborn baby on some of this excess crying.  I just feel tired suddenly. 

Yesterday, we caught an uneventful flight home.  I took some cute photos of little Chedda biscuit on his first flight home and looked over the photos of him and his grandparents-we actually got some with them together.  We were lucky that everyone on Jim's side were able to get together Sunday night and I took the only photos of his whole clan and the new baby.  My plan was to make a little story book for Chedda so he could get to know his crazy relatives out East.  Knowing this I took photo after photo of him and his grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins.

And then I effed everything up by forgetting the camera on the plane.  I realized fairly quickly and we returned to the airport to check but our flight had already left for Philadelphia.  And so again with the crying-crying for being stupid/forgetful, for taking the camera out in the first place, and for losing all those family photos.  I keep wondering if the camera is still sitting there in the front pocket of 20B or if someone has already taken it.  The whole lost and found situation at the airport is messed up-you need to file a claim at the arriving airport-but what if it's still on the plane going somewhere else?  Maybe my camera is taking a world tour right now-and it's found in an airport that I haven't filed a claim in?  Plus they have a whole don't call us-we'll call you if we find your crap philosophy that is driving myself insane.

Round and round these thoughts go in my head-as I sit here unable to sleep.  Tommorrow I will harass the baggage departments and try to leave my number at all airports my plane was scheduled to land at.  I will hope that someone will find the camera and do what I would do-turn it in.  And maybe then I will stop crying.

Until then I will remind myself that it is just a thing, the photos cannot replace memories that I can share with the little biscuit-maybe I can get Chedda's dad to just draw me pictures of the whole occasion, right?  I need to be thankful for my health, my little baby, my husband, my friends and so many other things that have blessed my life.  Of course the crying isn't about the camera-it's about missed opportunities-memories that fade-it's about my friend who didn't get to see her youngest graduate from high school-it's about leaving the baby when I go back to work in a few weeks and so much more.