••UPDATE••

upon receiving an overwhelming response to this tiny little blog in my tiny little corner of the world, i am feeling like i would like to further clarify the main point i was trying to make yesterday. i received a comment speaking about how my instagram + facebook do contain a sense of “perfection,” so how could i possibly understand the comparison game when i am likely to be one of the people who are being compared to?

you guys don’t even know, …it is so incredibly hard for me to feel misunderstood. i awoke to this message this morning and just felt crushed. i wanted to delete the whole thing because i couldn’t stand the idea that someone out there felt offended by my words. so i need to take a moment to explain that THAT was precisely one of the points i was trying to drive home. i mentioned in the blog that there are two reasons that i use these social media platforms (personal timestamped memories + sharing my work with the world) and in a way i am ALWAYS selling myself. i want to photograph all of the families and all of the love stories in as many places as i possibly can, so every photo i post needs to be what you would describe as “perfect.” like everyone else, i want whatever work that i put out into the world to be perfect. like a lawyer needs a perfect brief, and detective needs a perfect report, i need the perfect photographs. and i really just want it to be an honest representation of myself + my business. if you are following the work of a creative photographer, you should expect that their photos are going to make your heart thump thump thump and make your soul feel things, that’s what we spend our lives trying to do for as many people as we possibly can! it’s our job to see the world, ours and yours, in the most beautiful of ways.

the main point i was trying to make was that we all need to see beyond those pretty pictures. we need to see them for what they are but also know that the person taking them has experienced heartache, sadness, pain, and suffering like you. i follow someone on social media who could bring you to your knees in happy tears because she can convey the essence of a person in a photograph like no one else on earth, but i also know just a tiny bit of her story and know that her heart has seen depths of sadness most people couldn’t imagine. i wrote what i wrote because i needed to put into the universe that behind every pretty picture on the internet, is a person who has bled.

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a couple nights ago i got home from a weekend of shooting a wedding in cleveland. it was the last weekend i’d have to pack my bags and leave town for the rest of the year. and let’s just say, i haven’t unpacked those bags since february so it was a pretty big deal to finally be coming home, and staying home. it was thrilling to wake up that morning knowing that my wedding season was over, and that i could spend these next 13 ish weekends resting, dreaming, and getting our new home ready to move in. i devoured the most delicious buckwheat pancakes + sipped some perfect coffee + enjoyed a nice visit with a family friend.  i had a beautiful drive home listening to a podcast that blew my heart to smithereens, and then i lounged on the couch + binged a few episodes of highly dramatic television while i waited for marty to return home from the lion’s game.

if i had known what would unfold just before the season premiere of the walking dead was about to begin, i think i would have extended my cleveland stay one more day. the details of our fight aren’t what mattered, and what sparked it has no place in this story either, because all that really matters is that it brought to the surface the same crippling fears + thoughts + panic that we’ve been talking about for years. the things that show our truest colors and paint our imperfections. the things we sweep under the rug just like everyone else until we trip over them again. then that someday comes along when you trip for the last time, and you angrily take the rug outside and start shaking the shit out of it until the particles of the hurt, and the let downs, and the disappointments, and the anger begin to fall out onto the floor. suddenly you’re staring down at the pain that you hoped would magically disappear. but it never disappears. it can morph into something else, grow larger than it was to begin with, or it can weaken over time, but it will never disappear. eventually it must get swept up.

marriage is many many things. it’s a bond unlike any other between two people who care immensely for each other. it’s a partnership that runs deep to your core. it’s a friendship like no other, …and it’s a gift.

and marriage is hard. real hard. you have to wake up everyday and choose marriage. you choose this person who has the ability to both build you up or completely crush you, and not everyday is perfect. not everyday is easy to say “i choose you.” two days ago, i was filled with doubt and fear and questions that shook me like i had never been shaken before. i had myself convinced that i somehow duped this man that i love into this life. duped him into marrying me. duped him into parenthood. duped him into a life that to me he clearly didn’t want. i wanted to run. i wanted to run so far away and never look back. sometimes your partner can crush you without even realizing the extent of the pain they are causing, and somedays they build you up and feed your heart with more love than you think you deserve, and they do it thanklessly.

marriage is even harder in this hyper digitial-social world where all day long we share the highlights of our lives with our families, friends and followers. let’s be honest, no one wants to be a Debbie Downer in a world filled with love + sun soaked perfection. so instead we sit behind these devices of ours and we play that same old comparison game. never once taking into consideration that the torment swirling in our hearts over the heated battle we just had with our partner is so starkly similar to the one that sally just had a week ago with her partner, because today she is sipping the most perfect cup of coffee in beautiful light and shared a photo that included just a smidge of them holding hands while doing so. somehow, these photos and statuses and tweets that get shared mean that we are the only ones who have problems. i’ve posted before about this, calling it my Declaration of Imperfection.

no wonder we’re all angry and competitive, and depressed, and feeling alone. it’s like if we aren’t all having the best time ever, we are just completely sucking at life. if we aren’t on a plane traveling to some perfect place, or our kids aren’t doing the perfect thing on the most perfect wall in a perfect outfit, or our husbands aren’t snuggling us in the most perfect of ways for the most perfect of selfies, that somehow we aren’t doing life right. well you know what, SCREW THAT.

i have had some of the darkest couple days of my life + marriage thus far, but something really beautiful happened in the midst of that darkness, and before i tell you what that is, it’s important for those of you who don’t know to understand that my facebook + instagram is used for two things, and two things only:

1. to be a perfectly timestamped diary of events and emotions and memories
2. a platform to share my art with the world

that’s it. it has nothing to do with keeping in touch or staying updated with friends + family. i don’t need an application to do that, although maybe i do because i’m really really bad at it. so with that in mind, i decided that something big was happening in my marriage. something difficult and ugly, but i knew that it would ultimately lead to it becoming stronger than it was previous to this particular day, and i wanted to remember that moment. i wanted to remember my swollen eyes and broken heart, and how i felt sitting on the floor of that hotel room staring at my bags by the door wondering how i arrived here. maybe down the road when shit hit the fan once again, remembering that pain would spark solution and forgiveness and understanding when i might not be able to find it otherwise.

i stared at the updated status for a few minutes, nervous about the reactions it might receive or how my in laws might roll their eyes + cringe about sharing something so personal,  and because i was so scared to share it, was precisely why i did. what happened next blew me away…

and a text from a dear friend,

“…i saw your fb post and just wanna give you a virtual hug and tell you that _____ and i got in the biggest fight ever friday night. it was the worst and he said some of the most hurtful things (at least the way i heard them) anyways- this pregnancy is real life + from the bottom of our hearts we have to know how much they adore us. even when they don’t fight for us or act the way we want them too. my heart hurts for you because i felt so alone that night and like no one understood. i knew i wasn’t being overly emotional or just “hormonal!”…when i was laying on my tear soaked pillow on the couch that night i thought of you and marty and was tempted to compare because you guys are just perfect. just goes to show that EVERYONE has moments that marriage is a struggle, whether you are growing a beautiful miracle or not. Love ya sister”

THIS. THIS. ALL OF THIS.

i try to be very conscious about not making comparisons because deep down i know that everyone has problems, but i still felt so relieved to know that other people thought marriage was hard too, were brave enough to share it. like a talented fellow photographer saying that marriage can be vicious at times. YES! YES IT FREAKING CAN. i filed all of these brave + honest people into a folder that i could reach out to if ever i needed help or advice or a sounding board. who doesn’t want an army of people to help in a crisis?

it’s like we’re not allowed to talk about anything except the good stuff. like we’re programmed to be all hush hush about our problems. we aren’t allowed to say our partners have failed us, or our kids are being jerks or that pregnancy has a tendency to suck sometimes. we can’t talk about our dysfunctional families or our friends who betrayed us. we can’t talk about the fact that we don’t jet set and travel the world because our student loan debt has left us broke, or that some people hate their jobs. we must paint a picture of perfection or else we have failed.

here is my question, who the hell is making all of these rules and why are we still following them?? we are all human. we all bleed, and cry, and hurt, and suffer, and screw up. sometimes we want to run away from our lives and sometimes we hate our kids. i have looked at marty at least 20 times in the last month and told him (and anyone who will listen) that i hate our dog. and i meant it everytime! of course i actually love this wolf of ours, but it doesn’t mean that she isn’t the whiniest, the neediest,  or the rudest dog ever sometimes….errr most days…errr everyday.

perhaps if we all shared a bit more of our hurdles, and more of the hoops set on fire by our truths and pain, maybe we all wouldn’t feel so alone. maybe we’d all feel a bit of comfort during the day as we check in on what’s happening in the world over lunch. maybe it would be easier to get through a tough day if you knew you weren’t the only one having one. maybe it would be easier to fight for your marriage if you knew others were fighting for theirs too. maybe we’d spend less time comparing and more time just embracing our own story, and the truths + blessings + pain + joy that comes with it.

i mean really, what do i know? i’m just a thirty-something trying to navigate the uncharted territory of my marriage and my ever changing life! i just know that yesterday was really awful, but also really cool. i know that many people appreciated the honesty i shared and i’m so grateful to them, and i’m even more grateful that i found comfort in those who reached out and let me know that i wasn’t alone. there was a mutually shared benefit in sharing an ugly truth, and that’s a win in my book.

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on a personal side note of remembrance:

i want to make note of our awkward evening of getting the tour of where josephine will be born last night… because it was in this moment where i was pulled out of the anger just long enough to be able to see + remember what we’re made of.

completely silent car ride to the birthing center. surrounded by other pregnant couples laughing, holding hands, and chatting together in their perfect harmony. me, dying on the inside. marty, fidgeting in obvious discomfort. longing to reach for his hand but being way too stubborn to do so in fear that he would mistake this gesture for forgiveness. we definitely looked like the couple who were having a baby, but obviously hated each other. i was embarrassed, and i was dying over the fact that we were walking the halls that i’d be laboring in, and that we were too angry to be present in it. at one point, our arms and hands even bumped into each other due to my poor walking skills and we still didn’t grab on. *heart crushes* …but then, just as i was ready to bail out on the whole thing, he grabbed my hand. i grabbed back. relief rushed over my body, water filled my eyes, hope returned to my heart, and i wanted to just stop and throw my arms around him and cry, but of course i didn’t, because that would speak of forgiveness, and forgiven he wasn’t. but what i loved about this so much was the safety and reassurance in our love that it gave me. that simple gesture let me know that even when it gets hard, we can find a way to set it all aside so that we can be present for the important stuff. THAT is the kind of stuff that i need our marriage to be made of. that unconditional stuff. we exchanged very minimal words for those couple hours, and he laughed at me when i B lined for the snacks, but we continued on with a silent car ride home, and a completely silent evening, that lead to a silent wake up this morning, which lead to an honest conversation, which will lead to healing + change and more awesome memories to carry us through the next battle.

… i’m grateful to have a clean rug for awhile.