My Apologies

I know it has been a long time since I updated, and it has weighed heavily on my mind. Almost all, if not all, of you, my readers, know me personally and know that Travis and I broke up. It has undeniably been one of the most shocking and difficult things to go through. I have been a whirlwind of emotions, and I chose to take a break from the photo project to take care of myself. I also didn’t want to broadcast the things I was feeling because of the natural need for privacy for both him and I. However, I have not given up on the project. There is definitely going to be a hole, and it won’t necessarily be 365 photos at the end of this year, but I don’t think that is a good enough reason to quit. I don’t quit. I don’t give up on things, which is partially why this whole situation has been so hard on me.

For anyone who has left a long-term relationship, one of the hardest things to do is to find something to fill that hole that the partnership once held in life. Over the last couple of weeks, I have struggled with the question about what to do now, who am I on my own, how do I reclaim my life. It hurts to even have to ask these questions. I’ve felt so bad about myself. Without divulging too much detail, he had told me that I wasn’t challenging him, that I wasn’t taking on life the way I should, and that I wasn’t comfortable enough with myself. I took those words to heart, perhaps more so than I should have. Upon further reflection, I keep going back to the moment, when I saw this postcard on postsecret.com…

I saw it weeks before we broke up, and it took my breath away. It was exactly how I have felt for months. I am not going to use this space to speak about him, what he did, and who he is to have caused this, because this isn’t about him anymore, it’s about me. I was with someone who although a good person at heart, didn’t support, understand, or encourage the person that I am. He made me feel like I wasn’t living life in comparison to him, because he had more friends than I did to go drinking with and had a more successful career than me. But these are never things that I used to base my life around. I DO live life, and I DO know who I am. He often made me feel like I didn’t have anything, that I wasn’t trying. Maybe I wasn’t, maybe it was easier to curl up in his arms and not worry about myself for a while. Though, my life at the moment is a rollercoaster of emotions (love, hate, joy, despair, anger, frustration, ecstasy, fear) I often feel like I have won something back. No, I don’t have a wildly successful career, and I don’t get drunk with near-strangers. But I knit, cook, watch baseball, read poetry, learn languages, teach English, make badass latte art, play catch, fly kites, spend entire days just READING, get passionate about feminism, do the New York Times crossword every day, write novels in ONE MONTH, undertake a yearlong photography project, try any food or drink you put in front of me, listen to old country, watch old movies, read and obsess about serial killers, love aquariums, ride a bike 80 miles around the Czech Republic, dance drunkenly to 80’s music, drink Maker’s Mark on an empty stomach, move across the country in a blink of an eye, eat cold pizza for breakfast, swim the backstroke, karaoke the hell out of Dolly Parton, launch my own dicey website, and I am always willing and excited to learn and try something new. I am never going to lose those things for a relationship again. I know his list isn’t nearly as long as mine, and I’m never going to shrink my list down again so that I can fit with someone. I don’t mean to put him down, he is a wonderful person who I hope to stay friends with for the rest of my life. The only difference is that my life is now going to come first and come back!

The point of all this, is yes, to give myself some validation and some courage to go back out into the world, but it is also to say that I’m not done with the Project 365. In fact, I think my pictures are about to get much more interesting, as my life is as well. I have three weeks left in New York to soak in all this city has, then to Boston, then back to my true love, the Pacific Northwest.

So I am truly sorry, I have left everyone hanging for so long, but for all my amazing friends that follow this, I’m doing fine, and I promise much more amazing pictures are yet to come.