Things don't always go as planned. Sometimes we have to just accept the miserable wreck we see before us in the aftermath. Sometimes we get a do over. It can be tough for me, the relentless perfectionist to step back from a failure, breathe, and say "It's ok. I'll try again another day." That applies to the minor things in my life as much as the major. If you've been reading my blog for a few years, you've probably read about what happens when the major things go up in flames. But, these days even the minor things, the paper cuts of life, can send me spiraling into depression (more often now in my compromised emotional state than before when I wasn't such a broken person). My blog can be one of those paper cuts.
I'm frustrated when I spend the time to put together an outfit, hoping, fingers crossed, that the weather will hold out for one of my days off so I can go out and take some photos and then it all turns out so, so, so badly. It rains, I'm sick, the lighting makes me look like a haggard nightmare. It's silly, I know, but it gets me down. This dress was so lovely, and I was super excited to take some photos of it, plus the weather was warmer than usual and I thought I'd found the perfect spot. But, at the end of the shoot, I was unhappy with the result. I started spiraling, ever so slightly, downward. It just so happened that at the end of that particular day, I had volunteered to serve Christmas dinner at our community event. This event serves a free hot meal to anyone who comes. It puts me in touch with my town and helps so many families in need.
We served over 1,200 meals in the span of two and a half hours. I never got a chance to sit down and my legs and back were aching by the end, but I truly loved every second of it. And the bonus was that my outlook was totally changed by the end of the night. The very best way to get our focus off our troubles is to reach out and help others. Which by the way is not the same as looking at other people's problems and going, "Thank God I'm not them!" No, it's looking up, reaching out and asking, "What can I do to help you?"
With my fresh perspective, I decided to do a re-shoot the very next day. The weather was still lovely, so I headed out into the woods for a second set of photos which, I think turned out even better than the first, although I couldn't find my Unicorn Dream necklace anywhere. I decided to include both sets of photos in this post. As a reminder of how little things can get so over blown in my mind and why it's so important to keep going, try again, and let the past be the past so it won't ruin the present or the future.
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