The Thing About Timehop

Timehop is this time capsule app that lets you see exactly what pictures and updates you posted on this exact date in history, and I happen to think it’s pretty much the best app to ever hit Facebook.

Sometimes I’m dramatic, but I do think I might be right about this.

See, the best and worst thing about Facebook is the fleeting nature of it all. Whether you have something wise to say, a quippy quote to re-Tweet, a picture of tonight’s dessert or the reunion with your mom’s sister’s family, it’s all going to get buried in just a few minutes. It’s gone as soon as you post it, for better or for worse.

But now Timehop has come along and graciously unfolded a million days, one at a time.

Once a day, I can sign on and find what I’ve said every year until now. It’s a walk down the cobbled stones of memory lane.

I might get a picture of when my three year old said, “Mommy, I really like your very human hair.”

Or when this dialogue ensued, “Mommy, do you know what God says? He says, ‘Don’t say ‘butthead.'” Yes, in a roundabout way, he sure does. He says, ‘Be kind to one another.’ Interpret as needed.

Or when four-year-old Tucker encountered pulp in his orange juice and said, “I don’t like juice with so much hair in it.”

And when Tyler decided to give us all nicknames: Lunchbox, Pound Cake, and Sparkle Head.

Or on Thanksgiving a few years ago, when I noted, “You know you’re at your mom’s house when you can show up without a recipe, half the ingredients, or a pan for your assigned dish.”

Or when the boys set up the nativity and argued over Baby Jesus until his arm broke off.

Or when I heard these first sounds from the boys’ bedroom: “Tucker! Don’t play with me! I’m reading a book!” Which is a wakeup call I can support entirely.

Or the unfortunate day two years ago when I said, “A grown woman should not reach into the toaster.”

Or the day when I gave Tyler a hot dog for lunch and he informed me he only eats hot dogs on Sunday and Monday.

Or the day five years ago when I said, “My home smells like Robb’s Christmas lasagna.”

Or this morning’s update that reminded me of four years ago today, when I said, “My husband has Influenza A. He is highly contagious, highly quarrantined, and highly at risk without a spleen. Our Christmas just took a major shift. And I am very, very sad.”

And of course I know what tomorrow will say.

Time marches on, the days unfold, and stories happen in statuses (stati?) whether you’re paying attention or not.

You’d think I have a love-hate relationship with Timehop. But mostly I just love it.

Thank you, Timehop. You’ve made it all a little less fleeting. And you are proof that it all happened.  My husband lived.  And so have I.

It has really, truly happened.