I’m human. I grieve.

“I have to say I am relieved it is over:
At the end I could feel only pity
For that urge toward more life.
…Goodbye.”

-Delia Owens

Every year for about 20 years I would mail a birthday card for this very day to one of my best friends: an actual physical card. It was a thing we always did once we graduated high school despite growing digital trends.

I don’t have anywhere to mail that card anymore. She took her life a few years ago and the grief I feel sits in a pile with the rest of the grief I have yet to process…like a suitcase after a long trip whose contents I just haven’t picked up and put away yet. It sits there staring at me each day as a reminder of something I need to do.

For my age, I’ve been through a lot of loss and am no stranger to grief, but a few years back I attended nearly as many funerals as I did weddings. As a wedding photographer, I had to be superhuman. I had to put nothing but joy forth and project that everything was ok.

Everything wasn’t ok.

When you emailed me, I emailed you back from the couch I slept on to stay close to my dying brother-in-law as I tended to him through the night. When you saw me shooting that wedding, I was only home for those few hours to show up and shoot before I raced back to my family states away to be with my father-in-law in his final days. That text you got back from me came not long after peeling myself off the bathroom floor after becoming physically ill upon hearing the news of my friend. Maybe you saw me wipe a tear away during a moment at a wedding I was photographing because the funeral I’d attended less than 24 hours before was fresh in my mind or maybe it was that time my eyes welled up because the funeral I was going to attend the next day was heavy on my mind.

More than likely, you saw nothing and noticed nothing.

That was intentional.

This job and the expectations of social media have forced me to present myself in certain ways. Anyone that knows me well, knows how deeply empathetic I am and how I care so intensely for my family and friends and the work I do. I am relentlessly passionate about my level of care. They know I never cared about being cool and that I’d always choose something true over something vapid tied to notoriety even if it means standing there alone. They also know that I am very real. I am human. I get sad. I get tired. I get angry. And while I like to keep my little space in the photography world as joyous as I can through my imagery and words, sometimes I need to put words out there that hit a bit harder in order for me to feel that I am remaining loyal to myself and my principles.

We don’t know what people are really going through. I spent a year showing up to weddings and posting on social media as if the world around me wasn’t crumbling. I was facing the hard reality that when things fall apart, very few people will be there to help you put the pieces together. I still struggle with the reality of that.

I wish I could have put some pieces together for my friend. I tried. I should have tried harder and no one will convince me otherwise. I failed. We all failed her. Society failed her. She was my best friend. Someone as relentless in their pursuits as I am. Our fast brains seeing the world with an intensity not seen by most. It’s not always easy to live with such an intense mind.

A dear friend of mine recently told me that “connection is your currency” and she couldn’t be more correct. The truth is, I find social media exhausting. I’m forced to have a presence on social media because without it it’s like my business doesn’t exist, but the connections on social media have become too far from the real life connections that fuel me. I photograph weddings because I like telling a story. I study people. I witness connections. I anticipate. I freeze it all in time so people can revisit those moments and feel something for as long as my imagery exists in some form. I see moments many people miss. But this projection it feels as though I must always put out there, well, it all feels a bit disingenuous to me when I’ve had to hide such a big piece of myself at times because that isn’t what I am about.

So here’s the truth…. the reason I am good at what I do isn’t that much to do with my technical skills. Those can be learned by anyone. It has to do with the fact that I am a real human who has always felt deeply and has been able to see the little intricacies of moments. It is because I feel something in those connections I witness and I want to share them with the world. I’m deeply empathetic to the human condition. I see more than most people see. It’s mostly a gift, but sometimes a curse. The only way for me to feel like I’m not feigning connection on social media and here on my blog is to say these things out loud once in while… to check in and tell you… I’m human. I grieve.