This blog post is inspired by Cheryl Strayed's book, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar. If you haven't read it, please do. It is worth every minute of precious time.
One of my dearest friends recently wrote me an email. Her email matched most of our conversations that I will describe as "meaty." We talk about things that matter and then we go beyond matter and hit the how and why with a vengeance. She challenges me to think far beyond what I think I know and understand so I always feel a sense of honor when she asks me for my thoughts. In an effort to respect our friendship and her thoughts and feelings, I am going to answer her email here in a general way that might apply to others as well. I like to write about things that I gather from lots of people during lots of good conversations and I think this is another one of those. Here goes...
Friend: I know who I am - or at least who I want to be and think I am - but the life I am living doesn't really match that. I am a mom figure (a stepmom) without maternal instincts. I carry a camera but I am not a photographer. "Deep down it feels like an untruth about me and my identity, and it doesn't even matter how good I get at it. Even when I take an awesome picture, I am still not a photographer - now, I'm just a girl with a camera who took a great photo." I run but I am not a runner. As a perfectionist, I struggle with not doing things perfectly and, if I don't feel a connection to what I am doing, then it is not me. By calling myself a photographer or a mom or a runner (among other things), I am telling an untruth about who I am and who I always thought I would be.
Dear Friend,
Maybe one of the reasons you like to talk with me about things like this is that I am brave enough to tell you some of your own truth. I truly believe that deep down we all know our own truth but hearing it out of the mouth of someone we trust makes it real. Thank you for trusting me with your truth.
Here is some of your truth:
1. You take amazing photographs (I've seen some of them).
2. You are an amazing female role model/mom-type (I've seen that too).
3. You have legs that will carry you at a faster-than-walking pace.
4. You ARE a writer and a farmer and a wife.
I know you agree with me that you are a writer/farmer/wife and maybe its because you are good at those things and you take pride in those parts of your life. I am a mom and a friend...I'm pretty good at it so lay those labels all over me. At some point in your life, you decided who "Friend" was going to be and [DEFINED] and confined those things to your parameters. Those puzzle pieces fit right into place without force and without gaps. But at the same time, and observing from the outside, you have chosen a life that is filled with surprises and challenges and weirdness and uncertainty. There is a puzzle piece life waiting for you but you would never take it.
It is not difficult to figure out why we humans are so drawn to Frost and his road not taken. Because, what if? It is no wonder why we are intrigued by fate and faith and chance. We meditate and ask for signs and recite mantras of good fortune and you, my friend, have already opened yourself up to it. It is laying at your feet begging for a hug. For some reason, you found yourself with a camera in your hand. What is the worst that can happen if you call yourself a photographer? SO VERY FORTUNATELY, you already are what you are fighting so hard not to call yourself. If it sounds like a duck and walks like a duck...you know the old saying. Open your arms, Friend, and give your talent as a photographer/mom/runner a big hug and thank the universe for giving you the gifts. Your camera is part of your voice that I know you are doing important work with. Your path includes that small human who you are doing your best for, just like the rest of us.
I have a giant universe-size fear of how quick time passes and how I am spending my time and how satisfied I will feel at the end of my life. What will I have done? What will matter at the end? I have yet to be to a funeral where the message is, "Poor Friend...she lived too full a life. She stepped outside of her perfectionist comfort zone and regretted it for the rest of her life and now we are all burdened with her beautiful photographs. She did her best to raise a great human - and he is a great human - only to fall short of the Perfect Mother Trophy (which no one has ever actually won). Her body was healthy which kept her on this earth longer for her to love and be loved but we just wish she would have actually loved the brutality of carrying her body at a fast pace when she would have rather eaten donuts (duh...no shit)." No one ever wishes for fewer opportunities. No one ever wishes for fewer experiences. No one ever wishes for less of a voice in the world. There has never been a flower with too many petals.
The doors have always been there and you have answered them, my sweet Friend. You answered the wife door and the stepmom door and the runner door and the photographer door. They are all part of your place in this world - a world that I know you appreciate for its vastness and diversity and craziness. Thank the red door and the giant Chinese temple door and all the doors that lead you to your amazing life. As hard as you try to fit through that one simple opening, you were never meant to walk through that one plain door.
One of my dearest friends recently wrote me an email. Her email matched most of our conversations that I will describe as "meaty." We talk about things that matter and then we go beyond matter and hit the how and why with a vengeance. She challenges me to think far beyond what I think I know and understand so I always feel a sense of honor when she asks me for my thoughts. In an effort to respect our friendship and her thoughts and feelings, I am going to answer her email here in a general way that might apply to others as well. I like to write about things that I gather from lots of people during lots of good conversations and I think this is another one of those. Here goes...
Friend: I know who I am - or at least who I want to be and think I am - but the life I am living doesn't really match that. I am a mom figure (a stepmom) without maternal instincts. I carry a camera but I am not a photographer. "Deep down it feels like an untruth about me and my identity, and it doesn't even matter how good I get at it. Even when I take an awesome picture, I am still not a photographer - now, I'm just a girl with a camera who took a great photo." I run but I am not a runner. As a perfectionist, I struggle with not doing things perfectly and, if I don't feel a connection to what I am doing, then it is not me. By calling myself a photographer or a mom or a runner (among other things), I am telling an untruth about who I am and who I always thought I would be.
Dear Friend,
Maybe one of the reasons you like to talk with me about things like this is that I am brave enough to tell you some of your own truth. I truly believe that deep down we all know our own truth but hearing it out of the mouth of someone we trust makes it real. Thank you for trusting me with your truth.
Here is some of your truth:
1. You take amazing photographs (I've seen some of them).
2. You are an amazing female role model/mom-type (I've seen that too).
3. You have legs that will carry you at a faster-than-walking pace.
4. You ARE a writer and a farmer and a wife.
I know you agree with me that you are a writer/farmer/wife and maybe its because you are good at those things and you take pride in those parts of your life. I am a mom and a friend...I'm pretty good at it so lay those labels all over me. At some point in your life, you decided who "Friend" was going to be and [DEFINED] and confined those things to your parameters. Those puzzle pieces fit right into place without force and without gaps. But at the same time, and observing from the outside, you have chosen a life that is filled with surprises and challenges and weirdness and uncertainty. There is a puzzle piece life waiting for you but you would never take it.
It is not difficult to figure out why we humans are so drawn to Frost and his road not taken. Because, what if? It is no wonder why we are intrigued by fate and faith and chance. We meditate and ask for signs and recite mantras of good fortune and you, my friend, have already opened yourself up to it. It is laying at your feet begging for a hug. For some reason, you found yourself with a camera in your hand. What is the worst that can happen if you call yourself a photographer? SO VERY FORTUNATELY, you already are what you are fighting so hard not to call yourself. If it sounds like a duck and walks like a duck...you know the old saying. Open your arms, Friend, and give your talent as a photographer/mom/runner a big hug and thank the universe for giving you the gifts. Your camera is part of your voice that I know you are doing important work with. Your path includes that small human who you are doing your best for, just like the rest of us.
I have a giant universe-size fear of how quick time passes and how I am spending my time and how satisfied I will feel at the end of my life. What will I have done? What will matter at the end? I have yet to be to a funeral where the message is, "Poor Friend...she lived too full a life. She stepped outside of her perfectionist comfort zone and regretted it for the rest of her life and now we are all burdened with her beautiful photographs. She did her best to raise a great human - and he is a great human - only to fall short of the Perfect Mother Trophy (which no one has ever actually won). Her body was healthy which kept her on this earth longer for her to love and be loved but we just wish she would have actually loved the brutality of carrying her body at a fast pace when she would have rather eaten donuts (duh...no shit)." No one ever wishes for fewer opportunities. No one ever wishes for fewer experiences. No one ever wishes for less of a voice in the world. There has never been a flower with too many petals.
The doors have always been there and you have answered them, my sweet Friend. You answered the wife door and the stepmom door and the runner door and the photographer door. They are all part of your place in this world - a world that I know you appreciate for its vastness and diversity and craziness. Thank the red door and the giant Chinese temple door and all the doors that lead you to your amazing life. As hard as you try to fit through that one simple opening, you were never meant to walk through that one plain door.
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