Three binders and a feeling I wasn't ready for

Margaret dropped off the first introductions two days ago — three families, three contact sheets, three different requests for what they needed from this project. I cleared off the breakfast bar, laid everything out, and stood there thinking: okay. I’ve done this before. I know how to organize. I know how to document. I have a system.

I did not have a system for this.

Three binders and a feeling I wasn’t ready for

The Reyes family has been saving materials since 1974, loose in a shoebox that somehow survived two moves and a basement flood. The Nguyens have digital files, scanned from originals that no longer exist, but no metadata, no dates, no context — just images floating without story. And then there’s the Kim family, who have meticulous records going back three generations, but two branches of the family have conflicting accounts of the same events, and nobody wants to be the one to decide which version gets preserved. That last one stopped me cold for about twenty minutes. I sat there with my hand on an old photograph I couldn’t yet fully read and thought about what Margaret told me last summer about sentimental versus historical organization — and realized I was going to have to hold both, simultaneously, for people who weren’t my own family. That’s a different kind of weight.

He took this without telling me. I didn’t even notice.

Jake took that second photo without saying anything. I didn’t know he’d done it until I found it on my phone later. He does that sometimes — just quietly witnesses the moments I’m too deep in to notice myself. I’ve been thinking about what Carmen and I figured out during that chaotic budget session a few weeks back, about the difference between having a plan and actually understanding the scope of something. I thought I understood the scope of this project. I’m starting to think I was only at the beginning of understanding it. Which is maybe exactly where I need to be.