these are some of the things i know as truths about myself:-i crave the feeling of making people happy, of being good to people, of giving all that i can to them. to a fault. -i am needy -i am self conscious. deeply, deeply self conscious. -i bruise easily. in every way that that phrase can be interpreted. -i am 25. i have two children. i am a mother every minute of every day for the rest of my life. and life is really hard for us right now; we're not living it quite the way we wish we were. we're young and growing up and building our careers and lives, except that we have two kids watching us the whole time. -i suck at winter. SUCK.
so. my husband lost his job. and it's stupid cold outside (except yesterday and today were glorious, leaving me longing more intensely than ever for sun and warmth and...) and the world as i know it is almost completely covered in dirty, quasi melted snow and sand and gravel and mud. and piles of dog crap. seriously, there is a neighbor who is "letting" their dog crap outside of our house regularly. so what did we do? went to IKEA, bought a plastic bag holder and attached it to the tree that is directly outside of our house. the tree that the dog keeps crapping around (and by around i mean on our sidewalk that is next to the tree) and it's bright pink (the bag holder, not the dog or the crap). no kidding. and the bags dwindled and then people started putting their trash in there (that of course we cleaned out) and then they started putting their bags of dog crap in the bag holder. a small window into my general view and attitude towards humanity these days. what is wrong with people?!
anyway...
the best thing i can do is focus on what keeps me alive and feeling and present. the man, the boys, my family, my friends, my art. but in my typical way, the last two weeks have disappeared into a puff of smoke and i'm buried in this hole in the ground. the real truth is that i don't like a lot of things about our life right now. and my passion is to photograph things and document things. how do i do that when it's hard for me to see my life in my photos? sometimes i wish we could move far away and start over but where to go when life is so uncertain and would it really fix anything?
what i've been struggling with is where to point the camera. what parts of my life right now do i want to save? i can't let my kids and my love and life get muddled by this other crap. i have to create and allow happiness in the life that is mine, now. as it is. if i don't, i'll miss moments like these.
as it is, i'm starting a business while my husband struggles to find work. and it's so very hard to be patient. i just keep pushing myself, doing more, crossing more things off my "create the business you want" checklist. my biggest problem being that i am my worst enemy. i am harsh and critical. i want success for myself, but i don't believe i deserve it, or maybe it's that i don't believe i can achieve it. sometimes i find myself so wrapped up in being the one that saves the family with my rock star business, that i'm losing my own vision. i doubt myself too much and find all my old "do they like me?!?!" demons surfacing again. wanting to please everyone but myself. sometimes, i get so worried about being as good as everyone else that i don't allow myself to be ok with being me. with my own talent and eye. i need to be ok with the images that i like to capture and share and not worry whether or not they're as good as this photographer or that photographer.
life may not be ideal right now. we might have the most absurd (in a bad way) neighbors in the world, or live in an apartment that needs so much repair it sometimes makes my head spin. we may be struggling and we may be stressed. i might hate the colors of the walls or the curtains i chose for our bedroom 2 years ago. but these are the pieces that make us who we are, now. i will look back at pictures of these absurd curtains, or this falling apart apartment and remember "that's where we were when we struggled, when we started" and hopefully i'll be saying that from in front of the fireplace in my darling little farm house. dreams people, dreams. gotta have something to work towards...
but this is all just a really long winded way of saying that what i think i need is to nurture this blog more. not just the blog but all the things that it means for me and my creative outlet and all the things i want it to hold. i want it to hold my own little moments, like fireflies in a jar. i want it to display the progress of my art and my inspirations. i hope that it becomes a community, i am so tickled that there are a few more readers here that don't share my DNA or last name. i want to write and create. but most of all i want to give myself permission to be myself in this space. to not be embarrassed of our circumstance and to acknowledge that just because we struggle, just because the image of our life is not what i envisioned or want right now, it doesn't have to mean i'm less than. it doesn't mean i have to be ashamed. sometimes life doesn't pan out the way you thought it would, sometimes you feel like you're waiting for the disappointment to end. i'm making the decision, today, to stop feeling this way. or at least to try. things will get better, life will not always be this way. but more importantly, my kids won't always be this way, this size, this sweet. and i'm cheating them, and myself, out of relishing the positive and the good times and the love. because shit, my life is filled up with a lot of love. so for the next month, i'm going to blog every day. one sentence, or too many. one photo, or too many. every day. because to get all i want out of this, i have to put work in, too.
ok isabel, shutUP! yesterday was sunny and beautiful. so i said screw you to the funk and grabbed my camera.
(guys, those are BUDS on the branches. real buds. like something might actually grow there.)
blue skies, right when you need them most...
xo isabel