#TruthBooking: I had a come apart today during a photo shoot. All my feelings decided to show up at the same time, entirely unannounced and mostly unwelcome. Some photo shoots are hard and some are fun. Today was hard and then eventually fun, but it took a long time to get to the enjoyable bit. Fortunately for me, my photographer is a friend, and geez do I owe her one for today. She handled the moment with kindness and the best part was how she refrained from any and all attempts to handle me. She let me talk and be awkward silent, and she didn’t laugh when I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from ugly crying off the makeup artist’s lovely work. Little by little I expressed the feelings that had blindsided me and derailed our process. Photo shoots are loaded, especially with a post babies body and a lifetime of cultural body shaming BS lurking in the corners of my psyche. So that's just baseline anxiety givens. Fun times.
On top of all that, I had an idea for a set of shots and it flopped. As you can imagine, the perfectionist in me is not a fan of failing. The one thing she dislikes even more than failing is when she has to pick herself up after failing and walk away from the botched idea to find a new and better one. Boy was perfectionist me flummoxed today. I felt like we had wasted time on a day when I didn’t have any minutes to spare. I’m leaving town tomorrow and had hoped to spend oodles of time with the kids before and after the shoot. But first thing this morning the makeup artist I booked had to cancel which sent me scrambling for another and turned my whole plan for the day on its head. For the record, perfectionist me hates to have her expectations shifted, too. She had a really rough day.
The thing that really got me emotional was I felt like a bad mom. I know I'm not, but dang the mom guilt guild was out in full force today in my mind. When a mama is going after a dream, the whole family sacrifices. And today my kids and I lost time because all the things went haywire and the plan exploded and then my feelings followed suit. My heart was grieving the reality of that loss. Hence, I had a come apart in a photo shoot today.
So, next week or next month when I post some amazing photos know this: My friend Kriea Arie makes magic even with a weary, weepy subject. This life is not all glamour and beauty and perfection. Behind every capture is humanity, imperfection, and frailty, sacrifice, strength under fire, and whole heckuva lot of perseverance. ❤️