I wrote a poem a little while ago and one of the lines was something like: I’m only surviving on borrowed hope. I needed other peoples’ visions of the future, of my future, to keep me bobbing along the surface, when I really felt as though I was drowning. Recently, I started to see the cracks forming in the armored shell I wear, and a bit of light has started to seep through. I think that maybe now I’m no longer surviving on borrowed hope, but I may just have some of my own.
This has been a journey. Everything is, though, right?
I moved out of my home 2 years ago. And the trauma bond that had been keeping the attachment to that relationship finally broke about a year ago. I have been in therapy learning about myself, trauma, attachment styles, my childhood, my parents, my experiences, and more – all to understand why. So many “whys.” I’ve also been processing through photography because there’s so much I feel I have to stay silent about from this broken relationship. Since I cannot process with words, I’ve been processing through my art. I mean, the phrase, “a picture is worth a thousand words” is popular for a reason.
Recently, I did a selfie shoot to capture the contradiction I feel within. I am filled with hatred and anger and grief and I’m filled with light and love and joy. To live with such polar opposite feelings has long made me feel absolutely bonkers crazy. I don’t like it and I have struggled to understand how such conflicting emotions can live within me simultaneously. But, whether or not I understand it isn’t the point, I guess, because it’s my real, lived experience regardless of my level of comprehension.
So, I have slowly started to embrace just feeling the crazy. But then something happened a few days after I did this shoot…
I decided to start with my 60 second photoshoot experience to create intentional joy within and to just laugh at myself. I needed the reminder that I am strong, that I am magic…that I am walking sunshine, as my closest friends tell me. I had packed a super fun outfit that I’d never worn that had a bunch of mirrors all over it – it’s like wearing a disco ball. And I also brought my disco ball pillow to throw around, figuring it’d make me laugh at myself (note: it did).
After playing and feeling the release that only laughing can bring, I decided to close out my shoot with something a bit more moody. I’d brought my angel wings, because sometimes I feel like a fallen angel. Sometimes I feel as though I was supposed to be this sweet, innocent, precious being, but life just kept shooting me down.
After I captured what I wanted, I was exhausted. Emotionally spent. I packed up and went home.
It wasn’t until later, when I was creating a reel for social media, that I really thought about what I’d created. I had made a visual representation of what I was feeling inside. I had captured the contradiction.
Smile and dance. Seethe with rage and hate. Stand tall and be fiercely strong. Fall to the floor and scream.
All this lives inside all at once. Pretty much always – though the rage and hatred are feeling a tad more controlled recently.
This photoshoot helped me to embrace the contradictions that I have been fighting against for so, so long. I finally feel as though I have the permission to live in both vibrancy and grayscale. I am someone who is filled with love and compassion and softness and I am also made of hard edges and everything that comes with carrying grief and surviving intense trauma.
A therapist I spoke with recently explained to me that it’s important to name your trauma and that was so validating for me to hear. He spoke of existential trauma, betrayal trauma, and even of a trauma that was so specific in one of his clients that it didn’t fit in any box, so together, they coined their own name for it. This was another significant piece of the puzzle for me and it fell into place around the same time as this photoshoot.
So when looking through the photos from my shoot, I began to see that a whole person existed in each capture. And it helped me begin to accept that I am whole, despite the contradictions, and not shattered because of them.
After having this epiphany, I then went on a short vacation with dear friends. One of my friends has all sorts of tattoos, one of which is “stay gold.” She also creates her own jewelry and has rings with that same phrase stamped on them. I’ve been friends with her for years, have seen the tattoos and the jewelry, and have never been particularly moved by the phrase.
Until now.
For those that have read the book The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, you understand this phrase. It’s rather famous. But if you don’t know it, the way that I interpret it is, essentially, to not let the heaviness of a burdened past steal your light and joy.
I will never fully heal from my trauma. I don’t believe people ever do. I am forever changed from it. And I am still grieving, for many reasons, and also because I have not fully accepted this truth yet. However, one day those experiences will no longer be crippling. They’ll no longer affect me with the same magnitude they do today. I do believe that. So, this time, when I saw her jewelry, when I picked up the ring that had “stay gold” stamped on it, I felt the energy of that phrase thrill through my body.
Just because I have a heavy past that I am still trying to comprehend, doesn’t mean that I should lose the wonder, hope, and childlike joy that lives inside of me. Nothing will take that away from me because I just won’t allow that to happen.
Obviously, I bought the ring. And now I’ll wear it everyday as a reminder to “stay gold.”
A Graceful Catastrophe 