My Constellation of Stars

#52Essays2017
Week18

Lately I have been working harder on the things I am passionate about. I have been photographing Bernard much more, as well as dogs in foster homes, from Pupstarz Rescue. I have also been photographing everything I find beautiful- nature, buildings, landscapes, places; and whenever I'm not shooting, I sit on my desk and edit new and old photos. Photos that have never been edited, or ones that have already been through photoshop with several layer masks upon them. I get to create and bring new life to photos that were long gone and forgotten. I love writing about the process. Writing about how it makes me feel. These pieces are mostly for myself. They are handwritten. Just like photography, I write about what makes my heart turn, in good and bad ways. If there is an event in my day that was significant and had an impact on me, I write. If I see something that makes me dream, I write. If something happens to someone else, but it hurts me as if I carried the person's heart in me for a while, I write.

I photograph and write because I let out what I fail to execute in any other way. Verbally, words don't flow as well as they do when I write. Verbally, sceneries and soulful eyes can't be described as they are in my photos. I express myself best through art, and that is what I want to do. Forever.

However, because I've been doing this so much more, I'm becoming familiar with the feelings I get when I'm fully immersed in what I love. I'm becoming accustomed to relentlessly create. Therefore, not only have I been feeling amazing about it, I've also been hearing the little voice of depression make it's way back into my life. During the hours that I am immersed in photographing, editing, and writing, in other words, creating, I am on a high like no other. I'm in my zone. A zone I do not want to get out of. A high I do not want to come down from. But I have to, not because I have to eat, shower, and sleep, but because that is simply not part of my everyday life. It doesn't pay the bills, it doesn't feed me. So when I come down of the high, I don't gracefully hit the ground. I hit it hard. So hard it hurts.

The first few days I kept it to myself. I tried to ignore the feelings and push them aside. As if this would work. I should know better. Then I decided to honor my feelings and be fully aware of these emotions. I am entitled to let myself feel whatever I want to feel because there is nothing more real than my raw emotions. I told John about it. And although he was very understanding and kind to give me suggestions and advice, I just needed him to listen. Because the advice he was giving me were things I knew well I had to do. They were the things that got me out of hell, so I knew I had to to put them into practice. I just needed listening ears. I just needed to vent. So I let out all of my emotions. It hurt, but I also freed myself from them, because I was then able to see clearer.


I am lucky to have a job I enjoy, with children that make me laugh and families that trust my knowledge and capabilities to help and teach their children. I am also lucky to have all the time that I have to do what I love. I do count my lucky stars, even though sometimes I forget to do so. But I also count the stars that are farther away, not yet at my reach, because those are the ones that I will relentlessly work for. Stars that I am not sure if they even align. Perhaps my dream job hasn't been invented yet. But somehow I will find a way to integrate photography of dogs and beauty, with writing that comes from the heart and do them both for a living. I'll not only align those far away stars, but they'll become a constellation I'll form on my own, and I'll count each and every one of them every chance I get.