I Want to Cry When I Think About It.
Back when he was in middle school, Shane asked several times if we could watch home videos. We have a gazillion home videos, and I would love to see them.
But we can’t.
When Shane was born, we had a video camera that was the latest, greatest technology. I can’t even identify the format of the video tape. We used it for a few years and, when Shane was still a toddler, we got a new video camera.
The new video camera was even more technologically wonderful, and the video tapes were even smaller. We have dozens, if not hundreds, of those videos. They are all in a box and, while not all labeled or organized, they contain the bulk of the boys’ childhood videos.
Unfortunately, we can’t watch them. In fact, we can barely watch Shane’s infant videos, because it requires a complex set-up on a DVD/VCR combination, with the old video camera plugged in on the side. Only Bill knows how to do this, and he is never home. He’s tried to show me how to set it up, but I can never get it right.
For the past two years, my New Year’s resolution has been to get those videos changed to a DVD format, so that we could all enjoy them as a family.
Even if I have to take them all to Costco and PAY to have it done! I have mentally declared.
But it would cost hundreds of dollars to transfer them all, and I don’t have hundreds of dollars. And it would take weeks, maybe months, to transfer them at home, and I don’t have weeks or months.
So when Shane was in middle school, we didn’t watch very many home videos. And the ones we watched featured Shane as a baby.
This wasn’t exactly what he wanted to see. It was cute, sure, but he wanted to see how our family was, what we did, what the kids looked like as children.
Shane is now in high school. Dylan is about to graduate. And all of my videos are sitting in a box, waiting for me to “get around to” transferring them to a format we can watch.
I want to cry when I think about.
And I think about it every day.