Today is my three year anniversary on WordPress. Where’s my cake? I know I’ve been somewhat remiss in blogging as of late but 1) I’ve not been that interested in the Daily [writing] Prompts and 2) I’ve not been that interested in the Weekly Photo Challenges. And those two items aside, I’ve been trying to find a new job, start up an Etsy shop, celebrate my son’s birthday, and really … just living outside of my computer. I’m here though, I’m here! Don’t forget me! Please don’t forget me.
Today’s Daily Prompt is about Success and they want us to tell you about a time where everything I’d hoped would happen actually did. And while I might be interested in this particular topic, I can’t participate because I’m coming up empty trying to think of a time when this actually happened to or for me. And isn’t that just a little sad? And the Weekly Photo Challenge is called, “From Above” and well, it’s exactly what you think it is. Photos shooting above something. I hate to be negative, really I do but … yawn. From below would have been a much more interesting perspective in my unasked for opinion. On that note, I’m just going to create my own Daily [writing] Prompt today and my own Weekly Photo Challenge. Respectively they are…
Growth; since it is Spring, the telling of some kind of personal growth in your life.
…and…
Light; showing a photo that illustrates illumination.
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Daily Prompt: Growth does not always happen in the sun. In the light of your life. Sometimes growth happens where and when you least expect it. Sometimes personal growth happens, in the dark. A few years ago, I lost two incredibly important people in my life within nine months of each other. One was killed in a motorcycle accident while the other died of Melanoma. It was without a doubt, the darkest days of my life. In the beginning though, having had absolutely no experience with death in my life whatsoever, I somehow thought if I blocked it all out and just put it all away without looking at it, without acceptance or owning it, then I would be okay and it would all go quietly where it was supposed to go. It doesn’t do that though and it didn’t do that. And after a year of trying to mask the pain and bury the sorrow, it exploded and I had no choice but to deal with it. You can run but you cannot ever hide from yourself. And so there I was, in the dark, all alone staring at this horror and trying to find the courage to live through the mute days and the screaming nights. And begging the Universe and my ghosts to make it all a nightmare and not my reality, not me, not my life. And no one listened. And I had no words left to come from my mouth and the only emotion, the only expression I knew how to feel and be, was sadness. Overwhelming and all consuming sadness. I completely immersed myself in photography. It was a therapy of sorts for me. Countless hours walking in the woods, taking pictures of even the tiniest of creatures trying to find life again in an otherwise life filled with only death. And I wasn’t interested in other people or conversations or any kind of human contact. I merely wanted to hide behind a lens. Looking at something else besides my own life and what I had become. Surprisingly enough though, the world kept spinning and each day the sun rose again and each night, the stars were still shining and in time, I began to focus on that which was living and that which was growing and before I even realized what had happened and where I had moved in my own personal life, I had come out of that darkness and it was like Spring and everything I saw was indeed living and growing and I photographed that too. And then quite by accident, I looked at myself for the first time in a very long time and I saw too that I had grown from this experience and it had changed me forever. And in that, I am reminded of a quote by Trina Paulus that Kam loved and came to understand and accept in her final days; “How does one become a butterfly?” She asked pensively. “You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.”
Weekly Photo Challenge: Light
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
