Inside Out and All the Feels

We got to see about 3/4 of Inside Out at Disney Social Media Moms Celebration and we’ve been waiting since to see how Joy, Sadness, Bing-Bong and of course Riley’s adventure ends. On Friday night we had a family movie night and finally got to see what happened. Inside Out is about Riley, a preteen who’s life is uprooted when her family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco. The story is told through the emotions in Riley’s brain: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust.  The movie was just as cute and full of laughs as I remembered it being. And there were still those profound moments that Pixar movies are known for that resonate more with parents than they do with kids.

Without giving away much, there is a part in Inside Out when Joy, Sadness and Bing-Bong are lost in Riley’s long term memory.  Two characters working in long term memory are in charge of cleaning out and making room for new things. Some memories have faded to grey, as opposed to the core memories that are gold or the sad memories that are blue. These two characters suck up the faded memories and basically dump them. Later in the movie we return to the dump where we see bits of childhood memories have faded there.

And that image just stuck with me. All these moments of Jackson’s last 5 years, they will fade, some already have, I’m sure. And yet I still remember all of them. And the older he gets the more they will fade away. Think about it what details do you remember from 3, 4 or 5 ? And while I think my kid has an amazing memory (he was actually the one to tell John and I where the movie had ended when we last saw it) I know from experience that you don’t, you can’t remember it all. These moments are going to fade for him. Over time they will become dimmer until they no longer exist. And while I know they will be replaced by new memories, this just made me sad to think that not only is his baby hood quickly fading away but the memories of these years will fade for him too.

So that night as we headed up to bed I walked a little slower and hugged him a little tighter. And after he brushed his teeth, John and him worked on his loose tooth and sure enough his first baby tooth came out. With that another piece of his babyhood falling away.

His first gap toothed smile.

And I found myself trying to hold it together, to not think about faded memories or Bing-Bong or baby teeth. Trying just to enjoy these moments. And while Jack’s childhood maybe flying by, while every day he seems a little bigger, a little older; there is a solace in knowing that in a few months I’ll start this fast march of time all over again. That I get a chance to raise another baby.