Life has definitely started to make some changes, and a lot of them, I'm not happy about. When you start on a path, you see the end result of that, and it helps you stay motivated to keep running towards the finish line. Unfortunately, we never anticipate the bumps, pot holes, trees that have fallen over our pathway, or even to trip and fall flat on our faces, losing all momentum. At the moment, I am feeling like I am jumping over the worlds largest pothole, and I'm not sure I can make it.....so I'm hesitating, instead of just taking a blind flying leap and giving it my all. If you haven't guessed it, things are really hard right now.
I tend to get very introverted when things are hard. I pull away from people, even lose touch with people. I don't allow anyone to see me hurting. In my head, I am always to remain strong, happy, and stead fast. I am always the calm one when a storm is pounding down. Well, the storm is pounding down on me, and on my family, and I have panicked instead of remaining calm and helping. So, I need to find the thing that makes me happy again. I need to find my center. I need to release some of this tension, panic and worry, and get back to what makes me reconnect with myself, my family and my Heavenly Father.
My photo for this week is:
I have been so self oriented recently. I have been focusing on everything wrong in my life right now. I should find happiness in my children, and being with them, however, I don't right now. When I look at them, and play with them, I get sad. I mourn for how the plan for their lives may be changing. I should be happy when I am with my friends, but as I said before, I tend to pull away and become an introvert. When I do force myself to be around friends, I am not myself. I want to cry, and scream and say, "I am not ok! I am not strong enough to tell you that I'm not ok, or even why! But I need you and your support now, more than ever!" Instead, I smile, and laugh when appropriate, and I never let on that I feel like life is crumbling around me. Lately, I have not been sleeping much, I have had a headache for a month now, and my heart is sad. I need a release from that.
One of my greatest therapies is working. But, not photographing things, although I love that. My favorite thing is after I've gotten the photo. I LOVE to edit the photos. It's the most frustrating thing for me, sometimes, but it's also the most freeing thing to me. It is the one thing that can shut my head off completely. It is the one thing that can get me to not think of the other forty million things I need to get done, or all of the things that are going wrong, and help me focus on one thing. It is the one thing that I feel proud of myself, when I get a photo finished.
When I edit, I sit at my desk, usually starting at 8:30pm, after the kids get tucked in. I put my comfy pants on, and my pink fuzzy socks (the pink fuzzy socks are now a habit that my husband thinks is hilarious). I light a candle, turn on Pandora on my computer, open a Dr. Pepper, and I work. I sit there working until usually 2:00am. When I get a gallery finished, for a family that has lost their baby, it brings be a bit of peace, because I know that I have given that family back a piece of their child. I have helped them remember the child they lost, and the very special and sacred moments that they had with that child. I have, hopefully, made the images in their head of their angel babies, come to life, and even a bit better. Editing, especially those special photos, helps me to reconnect with life. It helps me to reconnect with my Heavenly Father, and do the work that He has called me to do. It helps me to feel love in my heart again, and helps me to realize that I can do hard things, and come out on top. It helps me to find my strength again to withstand the storm.
I am the calmest when I edit, but it makes me the most frustrated. I am the happiest when I edit, but I can also get the saddest. It is the thing I have the hardest time stopping. It is a bit of my heart. It's a piece of my happiness. So when I have turmoil, stress and sadness in my head, editing is my calming therapy. It fills my heart with joy, to see the photos that I took for families, come to life and evoke the emotion that I intended them to. It's powerful, and I am so grateful for it, for it brings that love back in my heart that was once filled with bitterness and fear.
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