Lights Camera..Run Away!

Lights camera action. Ready, set,…Run . A sure fire way to get me moving! This evening I decided to take the decision to have a rest day. A small fragment of me worries that I am using my aches as an excuse, as some kind of get out clause. Maybe a small part of me has succumbed to the self pity, but the majority of my reasoning is I know I need a day to allow my muscles to rebuild at rest to enable me to push forward tomorrow. Maybe I need to remind myself of the reason why I want so desperately to hurt my body, time and again. I enjoy each and every burn.. Why?
Photographs.

This is not going to be a pity me post, this is a post to reinforce the determination that I feel sparking within me.

Recently I tried to start an album for my daughter. Something that she can be handed when she reaches eighteen. A compilation of captured memories that made up her life to this point. Photographs are key, they are able to unlock a memory, a feeling, a sense of time. I had a mass of pictures. Pictures of my baby. From hospital delivery room, to hugging Mickey Mouse. Of godparents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, her dad holding her, gazing down into her face. I was shocked to find how few pictures of me could be found. In fact, the pictures of friends and godparents holding my baby where more numerous. The first few precious moments of her life. There exists two photographs of me with the most important and beautiful part of my own life. One includes just the back of my head!

I know that as “mummy” I will always end up taking a lot of the pictures. However, this is not the reason that I wasn’t in these photos…or most of the photos from my daughter’s early life. The reason is that I was hiding behind the camera. Yes, the pictures needed to be taken to document our little family, but someone would’ve had to have pried that camera from my cold chubby, wobbly, dead hands to get me to actually be in the picture.

I forgot the key reason for photographs…pictures of you, aren't usually for YOU. They are for other people to remember you by. To look at the memories and experiences they had with you.

Looking back it makes me sad. I can never get those opportunities back. Granted, it’s just a picture and I still have the memories, but will I always have them as I get older? And what about my little girl? Isn’t it fun to look back on old pictures to see yourself and your loved ones around you as you grow up? I still don’t feel all that comfortable in front of the camera, but it’s better. I dab on some makeup, fix my hair, and I smile as big as I can. chin down, hair over face. I still feel “fat” some of the time in those pictures, but at least I’m there. And more importantly, I’m working on getting rid of the reasons that I feel this way.

How silly is it that I can feel so beautiful until the flash goes off? How selfish have I been to hide knowing that in a picture you see just one angle, one expression you made for a millisecond, On the other hand, in real life people see at your face at every angle and through different expressions. My face, my body is a combination of all that, and of the inner me. Why do I hide. Why do I really think I look better in a mirror?

Things to consider, is that we normally only see a mirror image of ourselves, a camera will get different angles to what we are not used to. It is as others see us. Pictures are not very good at depth perception, So why do this? Why push and push and fight against the doubt that I will be able to run up that hill? I don’t want to miss out anymore. And there’s no reason why I should. Especially when it’s something I can control. It just should not be this much thought and energy involved in someone avoiding being photographed. Not when I feel this strong and beautiful as I am. I am making a change.