Stepping Back Into the Light

After five years of quiet mornings, school drop-offs, and creative exploration in the privacy of my home, I’m stepping back into the professional world but not quite the same one I left behind.

For those who’ve been with me since the beginning, you knew me as a photographer. For twenty years, my calendar overflowed with meetings and photoshoots. I moved through the world with my camera (and my iPhone) in hand, always documenting the perfect moments.

Then health issues and the pandemic hit, and everything stopped.

At first, the stillness was frightening. My ego struggled so much with this new reality. Each morning I’d wake up with the anxious thought: “You are not making money. Homeworking with your kid? Cooking three meals a day? That’s not you. If you don’t get busy, no one will hire you again!”

But something beautiful happened in that unexpected full-stop, something I couldn’t have anticipated. In the absence of external validation and constant productivity, I found space to explore parts of myself that had been neglected for a long time.

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The Gift of Emptiness

What appeared as emptiness was actually fullness of a different kind. Without my calendar taking over my days, I had time to read, to absorb new ideas, to question old patterns. I picked up paintbrushes. I filled sketchbooks. I learned what it meant to be present with my family not from a place of obligation, but from a place of purpose.

“The purpose of our lives changes according to where we are at the moment,” I wrote in my journal during this time. At that moment, my purpose was not a hustling business owner, but a caretaker of my family and an explorer of my inner creativity.

I began to understand that even the simplest things like making toast for my child or washing dishes without a scattered mind can carry ripples of meaning far from what I could see.

*This is just a glimpse. Read the full reflection over on True and Authentic.

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Read the rest of this piece and join the conversation on True and Authentic, my Substack journal.