I spent a large part of 2018 feeling as if I was ready for it to be over. The former half of the year brought a lot of questions, disappointments, and a feeling like everything around me was dissolving. So many relationships in my life felt like they were shifting, and I spent a lot of months angry-walking miles in the afternoon, because I felt so restless and discouraged. I questioned my business ability as inquiries came in super slow, people backed out of contracts at the last minute. I wondered if everything around me was signaling that it was finally time to look into another career.
Despite these things, and many other unspoken ones, what I am most proud of myself for in 2018 are the ways in which I harnessed my hurt into productive energy. When I was feeling down on myself and my work, my partner told me to write out all of the things i can do, the things i do have control over. So I did. And then, over the next few months, I slowly did those things on the list. All of them! As I was #konmari-ing my closet last week, I came across the list (entitled “things I CAN do”) and was struck by just how much I have grown in the last twelve months. The overwhelming lesson I have learned this year was the need to look things in the eye, and to work really hard. As a natural moper, this lesson doesn’t come naturally to me, but I have found that it has tied into just about every lesson I learn (and re-learn, and RE-learn): Showing up. Admitting when you are wrong or selfish or have mis-prioritized. Opening space for something new. Putting in the work, changing what tiny things you can, and hoping for what you can’t yet see.
With the extra time from a slower year, I started volunteering in the ceramics studio at Inner-City Arts and made coil pots with 3rd graders, and started mentoring at Las Fotos Project, an incredible organization that empowers teenage girls through photography. By extension, my passion for accessible arts education has been ignited through my work at these orgs, and although I am not yet ready (or wanting!) to step out of my current career, I am beginning to see a pathway for myself if I ever do. I put in WORK in my relationships and felt a deeper and more wholistic connection with old friends and found space to welcome many new, life-giving friends. I channelled my political frustration (and podcast addiction) into actual action by confronting one of my biggest fears (knocking on a stranger’s door and talking to them about politics) and canvassing for the 1st time. And then for the 5th time. I got more involved with local politics this year than I ever have, got to play a tiny role in helping flip a district in Orange County, and was gifted so much hope and inspiration by the folks I volunteered alongside. I cut my hair too short, I went to visit my brother in Europe with my sister, where I experienced 3 new countries, fell in love with Berlin, and did not fall in love with my first techo club. I had the best birthday of my life turning 25 in north carolina, where I went to waffle house for the first time, peed in the Atlantic ocean, tried and loved fried pickles, swam in a river, and fulfilled my lifelong dream of seeing fireflies. I lived without a car for four months, rode a lot of busses, went to my first fair, painted my bathroom pink with my roommates, threw another themed halloween party, re-pierced my ears, ate queso in Texas, and took a ballet class for the first time in eight years.
I channelled all of my people-storytelling-journalistic-empathetic energy into being the best photographer i could be for my clients. I invested in classes, I asked peers to review my work, I vowed to channel all of my energy into personal connection, and to only photograph what was true, what was important, and what was lasting. I felt confident in my way of seeing, and for the first time, 100% of the time, the people who hired me this year did so because they understand and love my way of seeing things. I am just so thankful and humbled by that. So grateful to make work that I care about and that others connect to. I received so many kind, thoughtful inquiries, emails, messages from people who felt connected to my work, and i really cannot emphasize how much that has meant to me. I welcomed in so many beautiful, BEAUTIFUL, open people this year that allowed me to see and document them in such intimate ways and that has been the true, shining light of my year.
And now? Here I am, surrounded by the things that I could not yet see 12 months ago. I walked into the year with questions and frustrations, and I am walking out of the year feeling proud, deeply grateful, optimistic, and ready for all that this next year has to teach me.
and, because i link them every year and like to put past-me on blast: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010
still