Cheers to the struggles, the joys, the growth, the ups and the downs and the in-betweens of this last year. To all we accomplished as individuals, as a couple, as a family. To all the growth and all the healing and all the learning. To the times we almost gave up and to the other times we thrived. To the dreams we have dreamed and are still dreaming. To the goals we reached and are still reaching. To the fight, to the conquering. To the life we were given and lived and fight to thrive in. To change and more change and continued change. And to a whole other year to come full of more of it all. To a whole other year of uncertainty but yet certain change and growth.
It's been years since I have stopped "believing" personally in all of this "new year = new you" making new year resolutions and goals...thing. If we want change we should, we can, make change any day of the year. If we want a clean slate, a fresh start, more than the ruts one can find themselves living in why would you wait for the end of a year and a new year to start.
For me: new year = new adventures. A new chapter, yes. But the last thing I want is to only make goals and dream dreams and strive for more and seek out change just one time out of a year. I've glimpsed and tasted what living life alive is like enough to never want to just live just to breath now. More than to try for something once and it not last and then wait until the end of the year to try for something else again...
"For what it's worth: it's never to late to be whoever you want to be. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
"I want to grow with you, to see how much we can thrive together.
I want to help you fight for your dreams, and see them come to life.
I want to be there for you, when it all seems too much, I want to be the voice that reminds you of hope.
I want to make you smile and laugh, to experience joy every day.
I want to be real with you, to open myself and lay down my armor.
I want quiet nights, filled with sweet nothings.
I want days filled with you, and I want to continue seeing you, in your weakest or in your strongest, I want to be there with you."
The last two months have been full of questions and hours of sitting in bed talking to myself, to the walls, to the ceiling, to Sam into the late night hours. Of a few more nights of restless sleep and confusion. The impossibleness of the unknowns and the anger that has slowly begun to creep back into my being and cripple my fight and joy over the last few weeks. It’s been almost a year and half now since Natalie and Jared came to live with us. We have been on this path with them because we have believed in it. Because we have had the energy and ability to be there. We believe in their healing. In having a safe place to be, to begin to fall apart and rebuild. The last two months have been break throughs for them in their healing. They have changed more in the last few weeks then they have the entire time they have been with us. Their walls are down and they have reached an entirely other layer of healing and knowing themselves. They are in a freer place, being more like teenagers than afraid little kids. They are questioning and searching and responding to life more. They are learning they feel and that is a good thing but now what do they do with what they feel. Their triggers are flaring up more and their emotions and attitudes are unmasked. It is a good thing that has happened that makes my heart soar with relief and hope. But it has made me realize that they are now in a place where I am not sure I can be and give what they need now. I have found myself starting to grind down into the ground and beginning to change as a person in ways I do not want to change and that are not healthy for me. I have begun to notice Sam and I’s relationship and the way we live changing in ways I am not okay with. We have become more exhausted of late and realizing how much more emotional and mental energy we have begun to put towards Natalie and Jared and less towards the things we were before. The balance of life that we want has gotten way of of whack.
So here we sit these up in to the late night hours these nights refocusing. Taking off any burdens of responsibility or guilt and asking ourselves the tough questions. Looking at our future again and what we want, how we want it, and what our expectations are. Refocusing on goals and planning instead of flying by the seat of our pants according to what happens and needs to happen with Natalie and Jared. Repeating to ourselves what the therapist keeps telling us. We have done what we have been capable of doing. And that is enough. In a few years from now we have had to make sure we don’t look back in anger from here on out now. For the last year and a half we have carried the baton of love, safety and acceptance and been able to do so with strength and the desire to do so. Now that they might be needing more than we want to give someone else with the want and heart for this next chapter of their lives may need to step in and take that baton over.
We do not know what this next new year holds. There are going to be doors coming up that will finally be closing that will be very good and very healing. But I know those doors closing are going to bring me to new rooms of healing that I have not faced or been able to face yet. Our desire to move is growing increasingly and overwhelmingly strong and I know will grow even more stronger after some doors coming up do close. And our dreams and goals in life we have and want for us as a family and as individuals is becoming more undeniable. Sam and I were looking back over this last year last night and we were wide eyed at all that has happened, all the change we have gone through once again, and all we have done in just a year. Every year the last 4 years has seemed to increasingly somehow outdo the year before.
Yup, life doesn’t look like a perfect gingerbread village all decked out in vibrancy and yumminess it looks like a beautiful hellish mess. You build, you make, you live, you decorate; some falls off, some breaks, some gets eaten up, some gets destroyed. But we have learned we wouldn’t want it any other way. Out of the dirt grows every beautiful thing. We are so much more incredibly stronger people from this last year and half. Sam and I have come to know ourselves deeper, more of who we are as individuals, more of what we want out of life, family, marriage and most definitely how to deal with people better and other's personal trauma.
I’ve been listening to this song on repeat a lot lately. I have declared it my song for this next new year. To sum up the questioning of this recent new time...
My head, my head is full of things that I should've done
My heart, my heart is heavy, and it sinks like a stone
She said, "Is this the life you've been dreaming of
Spending half the day away from the things you love?
It's not too late to do something new."
She said, "It's hard enough trying to live your life.
But not following your dreams made you dead inside.
If you don't love what you do."
It's not right, it's not right for you
If you even have to think about it
It's not right, it's not right for you
If you really have to think about it
You got one life to love what you do
My hands, my hands are scarred by things I shouldn't have done
My feet, my feet are weary from all the miles that I've run
She said, "Open your mind, take a look within.
Are you happy with the world that you're living in?
If not, you gotta change what you do."
She said, "And lately I don't see you smiling lot.
Are you happy here with me and the things we've got?
If you can't say that it's true."
It's not right, it's not right for you
If you even have to think about it
It's not right, it's not right for you
If you really have to think about it
You got one life to love what you do
If we don't do something now then we'll never know
If we stay here too long then we'll, we'll never grow old
So, before it's too late and it's killing you, yeah
We've only one life to live. So love what you do
It's not right, it's not right for you
If you even have to think about it
It's not right, it's not right for you
If you really have to think about it
You got one life to love what you do
In the end, in the end
Better hold 'cause you're take it all in
In the end, in the end
You got one life to love what you do
In the end, in the end
Better hold 'cause you're take it all in
In the end, in the end
You got one life to love what you do
It was an icy wedding day at Crossings Chapel, in Oklahoma City, for this African bride and groom. With temperatures that threatened to frost over your fingers and had your teeth chattering in minutes. One could never plan such weather and white covered beautiful wedding day backdrops though. It was absolutely beautiful and I loved photographing Jennifer and Chana and their laughing, happy love. How Chana could not stop kissing her and how she could make him laugh like no other. Totally in love and crazy about each other. Organic, real, easy to capture kind of happiness not caught up in stress or their surroundings but in each other.
I wish them all the best I can possibly wish them as they continue on their lives back at their beautiful home in Mozambique doing the beautiful work they do and spreading their madly awesome love around them to everyone! I'm honored to have had Jennifer ask if I would be the one to capture their day and I look forward to an after wedding Christmas shoot with them over the next few weeks!
