When Reality Hits

Yesterday I booked time at a studio downtown to do some self portraits and some detail work with my muse, Micah and something happened that I didn’t expect. Before Ryan left in the morning, we had to figure out our schedules for the day and he said “When you are done at your studio, then come pick me up.” And in that one sentence I felt a brief bit of sadness because I knew I wasn’t going to MY studio, but my brain still conjured up images of my studio. But the real impact happened, when I took the same route to get to the other studio (it’s literally 4 blocks away from my old one) and as I passed by my old building, I began to sob.

The reality of me not having a studio, but moreso not having MY studio hit me like a ton of bricks. Like most things, I thought I was fine and just kept busy to ignore it…until I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Driving past my building I had the fleeting thought “I wonder who has my space now and what it looks like” and in that one split second of a thought, the walls came down. I had 4 blocks to compose myself before I showed up to the other studio, but it was really jarring. I didn’t expect to be affected so much - but I guess I DID have the studio for 7 years. That’s pretty impressive for me.

Instead of trying to suck the tears back up or brushing it aside, I honored my feelings. I sat in my car and remembered everything that I had created in those spaces and I took myself on a trip down memory lane before I headed up to the rental studio. Thankfully, I had also brought a bodysuit to do some dancing self portraits so I was able to work through my emotions (those images will come in a later post!).

But, the moral of this post is to remind you that sometimes you will be caught off guard by your emotions and while many of us have been taught to “suck it up” or “get on with it”, I think the healthiest thing we can do is honor them when they come, knowing that they won’t stick around forever.