My latest Chatbook arrived in the mail the other day. As usual, I tore open the jade-green envelope, flipped through the photos with a smile, added it to the growing stack on my bookshelf, and considered whether to cancel my subscription.
Since I started getting my Instagram photos printed through Chatbooks a few years ago, I’ve racked up more than 70 square softcover albums of my daily life. I loved the idea: an easy, affordable way to print the photos I was choosing to highlight anyway. And I still like the quality, and the ease and fun of getting a few photos off my phone. But every time I thumb through the pictures of flowers and books and my guy, a nagging voice in my head asks the same question: does it matter?
Since my divorce, I am a household of one: physically and financially independent. I wash my own dishes, pay my own bills, struggle to do my own meal planning and structure my days. Especially since the pandemic and my furlough, I also struggle to believe that being alone is not a lack, not a deficit. That my worth is not determined by my relationship to other people (though I do have, and am thankful for, deep loving relationships in my life).
Getting my own photos printed sometimes feels like a small declaration that I matter, and sometimes it seems like plain self-indulgence: who else is going to look at these albums? Who would care to? These photos and captions don’t matter much to anyone but me. Is that reason enough to keep spending the money? Am I overthinking this? (The answer is probably yes.)
I don’t have a good answer right now, for the photo albums or for the larger questions of how to build a life on my own. But for now, I’ll keep trying on both counts: keep snapping and posting photos of the details I notice and enjoy, and keep working to believe that my noticing counts for something. I’m not sure if I’ll keep stacking up the photo albums indefinitely. But for now, they serve as a small, tangible reminder: I am here. And I am trying to pay attention.
cakes, tea and dreams 
I don’t want to comment on a fellow internet nerd’s life 🤭but I would have to say, yes…it sounds like they are worth having……I find I love a detail on a pic that I stumble upon when I had half forgotten about it 😊
That’s true!
Your chatbooks matter, your captions matter, your reviews matter, your writing matters, your work matters, your hopes and fears and dreams matter, and this time of your life matters. And who of us can ever accurately measure all the above for ourselves? We all may just need to write a “Yes, actually!” contract with ourselves, and sign it! ❤
Thank you so much. xo
You definitely matter – to those who love you and to those of us who you will probably not ever meet. I don’t comment often – thinking my words don’t matter. Today I hope that they do. I enjoy your posts, pictures, books, well everything. I am retired, so i don’t have the same lifestyle, however I do remember those times and also the times before & after my divorce (married 30 years). I stayed relationship free for 7 years following my divorce, sometimes working 3 jobs to make ends meet, making some very hard decisions, and sometimes those self indulgences got me through very dark periods. They didn’t happen as often as I wanted sometimes, but what a boost to my spirit. Hang in there, and treat yourself as well as you can, including those self indulgent times. And I agree with “Relax” make a contract with yourself for your self. Take care
Thank you so much, Kay. xo
❤️
I felt this way, too, after my divorce. Especially because I knew I was also never going to have children. Who is it all for? I will have no grandchildren to pass my things down to so what am I holding onto and why? It’s strange to think that my things are just all for me, and all for right now. I have things and keep things for me alone, just for the sake of wanting to. I am in a relationship but after one marriage, I don’t know that I need the same roots from a relationship that I once did. My things don’t need to be documentation of a shared life. They only have to be whatever I want them to be, and that is enough.
It’s hard to accept all of that – but yes, exactly. You express it so well. xo