Documentation

The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. 

Joan Didion



After having Bonnie, I have been particularly compulsive about writing everything down. I've been a maniac about writing things down. Many writers keep notebooks, but it was never a practice I made my own with any sort of consistency. I would make lists, write down dates and events, in waves and seasons and then I'd put the pen down and walk away from it. But not with Bonnie. 

I want to remember all of it and I already feel like I am forgetting it. I want to have the answers for her when she one day asks when her first tooth started budding, if ever she asks when her first tooth started budding. I am afraid I haven't taken enough photos of her, which is absurd because I am constantly taking photos of her. This need for documentation is, in part, my desire to have the answers for her one day, but it is also for myself, and the need to have it all and keep it all close to me for as long as I can. I never imagined it would be this way, but when the nurse placed Bonnie on my chest for the first time, the thought that came to me was of a sort of sadness: "she's never going to be this small again."