This phase doesn’t seem like my abundant original art phase of life sometimes – a lot of times it’s a struggle to put all this passion and vigor and life and big dreams through a funnel and decide where is all lands and what I need to accomplish everyday – in little bit sized manageable steps in order without getting distracted! Do you ever feel that too?

BEING human is hard, being an artfully longing person is hard, being a parent of those who also have their own needs and desires is hard. 

I’m glad we got that out of the way, that I can be honest with you and that you understand the real dilemma I’m facing, and historically I think we are all facing.

In this current moment it’s July 9th – is everyone feeling this way after the holiday weekend? Maybe it’s collective. But reality is hitting hard that May is over – June disappeared – and also was sorta savored when it finally got warm in the midwest and …. I have a little more than two months to get myself and my kids together until we start school. Which for me as a homeschool mom is a whole big can of worms. Thankfully we are getting through our summer work at a nice routine pace, sometimes it takes people an hour to start but everyday we are following through – a bit. AND in this current moment, I am trying to plan out all of my social posts for the month of July – and it is wiping me out. DO I feel like this is the key to life – ever after – YES – am I so glad I am finally getting serious about what I am saying and putting out into the feed of those who thirst for realness and for me – finally embracing what problems I solve for the world – one portrait shoot at a time. But is it a lot. YES. Will everything be better in the long run absolutely. Do I need to take the kids to the pool still – yes, like soooo much. But I am hopeful that this calculated shift will help me to feel more free – allow me to connect deeply and be able finally to give into my whims of inspiration and engage in conversation with the clients that need me most. AND interestingly enough as I do it – I find my mind – gets excited and I just want to do it more and more and more and not be bothered by anyone or even eat or rest or sleep until it’s done. This can be a predicament for real life and I hate to admit it but it’s true. 

My mind is still in March a bit – when I signed the kids up for their fall classes. If I go back to April – I’m still mid way through the todo list I had before I left for Paris, and my heart my mind my head is still in the projects I was working on in June before we left for our cruise. AND if we are going with the forward momentum I am already thinking about fall – and what I am offering to the world and all the things I need to get in line before the studio is ….. completely built and ready for clients. 

Our backyard studio addition in process.

There are these moments I’ve had driving Charlotte to voice lessons on monday nights – Monday’s ahhh do we ever accomplish all that we set out to on that silly day? SO Monday nights there has been this moment that literally lifted my spirits into a virtual universe and launched me into gratefulness faster than the space center – simulator. It’s about 7:40pm- we drive on Warrenville road – pass many fields – the sun is always low – the windows down – this song came on- the first time – it played- I had barely heard it. It’s Sure Been Good by Elevation worship – Tiffany Hudson and Chris Brown Tthe lyrics are, “You took the mess that I was and You have done some incredible things, you always knew there was a better me, but you loved me like I was” and the chorus goes “ and I’m praising you because you didn’t leave me like I was, you didn’t have to save my soul, but you did, and I won’t forget it.” Over and over again it goes…. AND it’s me and Charlotte, our hands our up, and the wind is blowing on our faces, and the sky all around us is open and clear and a mix of blue and pink…. And my soul, and everything that I am and am not, and everything that I got done that day and everything I didn’t is – just in the space of my open hands to Jesus “filling up the spaces in between, you’ve always been enough.” AND I swear if I go …. In that moment … I would follow the angel and just lift up, ya know. But that little bucket of love darling is next to me – and we are both crying (so much of the same person) and I drive as carefully as I can in that moment with that treasure next to me. AND in that moment I am complete. I am bearing witness to whatever he wants – and my heart is all in and I’m totally willing. AND my prayer is Please God help me be open, please be with me, please lead me, please help me as I try to do these things with this life and my work. AND Yet keep me in this moment – this precious moment of singing with my daughter in the car, of lifting our hands to you. AND at those moments – suddenly it becomes clearer that is the only focus I need. 

On the boat on the cruise, and also in Paris – I was filled with the biggest want and desire to write a book, … thinking about it more on the boat I was even thinking about where I would want it to be, like what hotel I’d like to put it in and what colors the binding would be. And returning to real life – it’s like oh yeah I want to fit that in, so then I will want to schedule an hour a day but where would that fit in, and on day’s like today when the words didn’t come – as they are now, PTL, what would I do? I LOVE white, but sometimes an empty white page is daunting.

On our balcony on the Cruise searching the water for wildlife and dreaming big dreams

I’m hungry for everything – there is so much I want to do, but I’m actually a human I try to remember – and trying out for plays, and auditioning for musicals and creating side business beyond my OG target market and singing, and creating artful films – and riding those horses behind my house, and homeschooling my kids in a slow way, intentionally, can it all happen in one lifetime? AND I don’t know what is up with my family but they like to eat dinner, and somehow that is my job. 🙂 thank goodness I had them all help with meal prep last night and they did a great job.

This past spring, after reading lots of books on parenting I recognized that I probably had ADHD this whole time and my body and my mind was worn out from coping and regulating as a mom in addition to everything I wanted to do. And also I recognized others around me and I the needed support. 

Even in perfect Paris I recognized quite regretfully that I had forgotten one of my original intentions for the photoshoot we had. It made me wonder about where in the pullings of pleasing people, or getting happily lost in the moment, I lost myself. Was I just falling back on wanting to be special, or not listening to those mid-way through the moment feelings that came over me, and I pushed away, and it made me wonder if I had self sabotaged this one chance with Michael, to embrace all of our sweetness in “loverville”. I even wondered why in all my running around before we left to acquire the look – I did not realize or remember my real intention. Did I not truly trust myself. And then Scarcity enters too,  the thought, we will never return and I have basically ruined it all. AND it was – the one thing I wanted well one of two things I planned – he had the rest of course – as it was a surprise trip. Or was it that, I am just human, that the time with him was SO great, SO wonderful, SO rare to have all of his undivided attention that I just wanted to return to it, and was happy with the photoshoot and just loved that we got to go back to the walking, sipping coffee, and holding hands, and all the things. I though I doubted myself I had to intentionally choose to get over the regret of that whole situation –  and settle with that is was wonderful regardless, and after two sleepless nights, and a few tearful talks about it, I moved on. Knowing that I would love the pictures and I did. 

And I have not looked back from getting support since then, I got tested the week we got back and gratefully took the prescription given to me. And since then, I feel like I have the energy to support my life – to not – ahhh fall asleep at the library with my kids mid afternoon or lose steam on the projects facing me or things I’ve been procrastinating on. While on vacation – missed my “helper” for one day and ended up needing a quick nap at the space center – crazy right – it reminded me of old times, it was a huge surprise to my husband but my kids were like, this is how she was. Is that picture of me – sleeping on a bench with my little over the shoulder bag as a pillow, funny enough to picture for you? And I was two cups of coffee in, and had a salad and half a burger for lunch. 

Charlotte pretending to be me – falling asleep at the space museum

All the things…..gosh not only were we enjoying Paris through all our senses (mostly taste and sight) but I also had big plans of having “big conversations” you know, of course, said in the same tune of Taylors “Big reputation” song. ONE giant list of the things we wanted to do and be for ourselves and our family and the big dreams we had. AND have we looked at that once since, well only once – because Michael and I just tumbled back into life – we roll rapidly fast, going straight into easter, a family reunion, his birthday, all the spring sessions, the end of the school year, the start of the addition and construction, the onboarding of an intern here at MGP, and then the loss of our first pup together – which we could hardly utter to anyone because it was too sad, and straight into all the summer plans, a week of vacation and literally from waking up to going to sleep – pure unapologetic work. THIS is the definitely the beautiful reality.

Us in the streets of Paris – one of my favorite pictures.

And before I leave you for the night, let me leave you with this precious moment to think on, while Michael and I were having our photoshoot in the garden’s of the louver – I looked at him, and thought of the line of the poem that has lingered in my head for years, “a man hugs a woman in a park.” This perfect line – from a poem I wrote years ago, in the perspective of a man I barely dated a moment, yet was so formative in figuring out what I wanted, haha and I didn’t make the cut – and I was swooning with rose colored glasses nearly the whole time. This poem, though was great and for many years I have thought that it needed a follow up, and for what ever reason, perhaps that I actually found love and so there must be this mental block that tells my brain I don’t need to write about it anymore, or perhaps because I fell in love and was suddenly in it, I just got busy having fun and raising babies and got too sleep deprived to care how tan my toes were or how I might appear to my own husband, hehe I just loved him and he loved me, and there was nothing more to say, (not that there aren’t super sweet words or moments) more that I don’t have to imagine with my rose colored glasses – and write about it, I just live it., everyday. So when this line came to mind. AND in that moment it felt fitting, a realization that I actually was living out what I had in mind for my life, and actually was living a reality far beyond even my own expectations (there’s a wild idea) So the whole thing felt like it was a sign that this year I might continue it, or put to words to what it feels like to be where I am now – maybe in the view point of Michael or what might even be harder – my perspective, I would just need to focus.