May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung. May you stay forever young.

Tuesday morning and the snow is falling, dusting all the cars I see out my window. This past Sunday I ushered in a new decade of life. I took it harder than I thought I would. I don’t think it’s the actual number, but rather life’s current circumstances and the fact that your birthday lends itself to thinking about yourself even more than normal. An entire day of people telling you how old you and where you’re at in life’s continuum.

Although most of my industry peers and friends are my age or older, I still focus on the handful who are younger than me. I don’t compare my work to their work, or anything like that. But I compare my age to their ages. How they are so young (my favorite photographer is 20!) and already on the paths of their dreams. How lucky they were to know that and follow it so early. I wonder what it would have been like if I’d done the same. I do realize that my own path … as non-linear as it was … brought the right people into my life at the right time. And having a professional position outside of the arts first, makes me never want to give up being my own boss now (my old boss was awesome, but just saying). I know I will never give up on photography because of what’s behind me. I know comparing your age to someone else’s age is really dumb. It really is a number and nothing more. Who knows how long any of us will be here anyways? I am grateful I didn’t sit around thinking I was too old to start my own business until one day I really was too old. It’s about what lies before us and not behind us, anyway, that matters. I’m just babbling … this is the way my thoughts are these days.

It’s a crazy thought to me … leaving behind my 20s. I loved them, insane as they sometimes/often were. Their first half was marked by college, lots of new relationships and loss and growth and community and discovery. And, sadly enough, they were marked by giving up on art and all my dreams in exchange for security and safety and the known. 23 was perhaps the most epic and rollercoastery. Lots of Choose Your Own Adventure choices and decisions made that year. The second half of my 20s was marked by grad school, my first truly professional position with the UW, marrying Troy, adapting to life in a city where everyone moves away after college, mourning a community scattered across the globe and embracing a new, different community of like-minded inspiring creatives and photographers. Rediscovering and unveiling all my dreams again … and this time, actually going for them and making them happen, starting my own business and quitting my fulltime UW job. Settling in some ways and resisting settling in many more ways.

And now, 30.

Like I said, it’s not about the number. I’ve been looking forward to my 30s actually. People say it’s like stepping into your own skin. But I feel far from my own skin these days. January in general has been rough on me. If I’m being honest, I’ve been derailed since November. Out of sorts and uninspired. You can probably tell from my lack of blogging. I know this is mainly because I take time off in the winter from shooting … I just need to get back into that. I took a month away from Facebook and that was amazing just because it was one less thing suffocating me … one less thing laying itself down on my chest to squeeze the breath out of my lungs. One less thing to keep up with, impress others with. This is the deepest rut I’ve been in since starting my business. Things on paper are great … I still turn away more work than I’m able to take. I have inspiring and awesome clients. I’m not unhappy and I absolutely love my job. I’m just, not myself. January is always a time I look forward to like I used to look forward to the first days of school. Renewal and resolutions. But every day since December I’ve been filling pages upon pages in my Moleskine … trying to write it out and work it out. My head is stuck in years ago and years to come. What I really want and how I need to struggle through some change to get there. The time it will take. I’ve always been a daydreamer, but lately it’s extra hard to be in the present.  Somebody give me a personal project to work on. Tell me this won’t last. I know it won’t.

As I was writing this, a friend sent me a message on Twitter saying he took his 30th birthday really hard too. But now, a couple years in, it’s the best decade yet. I know he’s right — that it will be. I just need to shake this present feeling. Entering my 30s, I see myself focusing on the now, what I have, and loving it harder and better. I see myself embracing what I wasn’t ready for in my 20s, and seeking the approval of others less. I see myself recognizing what I need for myself and not what I need others to see me doing or being.

I see moving forward with balance and stealth. But never with so much balance that I forget to live with abandon and spontaneity when a moment presents itself. Because what is a life of only balance? I need to keep some of my 20s-spirit, after all.

Everything passes. I know that one day I won’t even remember these days. These times of darkness make the other times so much better. Perhaps this blog post was a little too raw and honest for a public and business platform. But it’s where I’m at and I wish others would write more from the heart sometimes so we wouldn’t all carry the illusion that we are always all inspired and *on* all the time.

I’m looking forward to a lookbook-inspired shoot next week. To shooting consistently again. I’m clinging to that for now :)

xx,

AM