There was a lot I wanted to say; even more I wanted to remember. I’m trying to think of specifics right now—the time she, the time he—but my memory fails me. The three years and eight months that I’ve been a mother are mostly a vague mix of emotion, words, and some very questionable textures, the specifics of sights and smells lost in the swirl. For something so life-changing, the moments are shockingly easy to forget. All the more reason I should have been capturing them on hi. But I didn’t. And tomorrow I no longer can.

Like many things in life, I assumed that hi would always be around, even though most of life should have taught me to know better. With my memories in shaky short-term storage, I envisioned a day, maybe a week, when I’d be able to put things down in writing.

It turns out motherhood and moment capturing are not ideal playmates. A mother’s hands are always busy, often sticky, and hardly ever her own. When the moment happens, we need a secretary to take dictation, a photographer to document it, and why not throw in a nanny while we’re dreaming, to help with the clean up. I’d sometimes imagine a future when phones could be operated via mind control, a blink of an eye triggering a click that would open the app for us, a verbal cue allowing us to type, save, and submit.

Oh well. File this under “ideas for the future.” File me under “regretful, but appreciative.” Thanks, hi and the hi community. Till our words meet again.