Tell the world that we finally got it all right
I choose you
I will become yours and you will become mine
I choose you
I choose You.

– Sara Bereilles, I Choose You

Last week…I chose.  I FINALLY made my choice.

With a full heart and only happy tears, I chose “Photographer.”

Done.

That’s it.

Simple.

I left my career as an engineer.  Seventeen years.

It was good run.

We all have moments or months or, MOST often, years in our lives where we struggle identifying our purpose and our place in this world.

Who am I?

WHAT am I?

Is this IT for me?

Why is wine and chocolate cake considered unacceptable for breakfast?

So, before I share a bit more, I want to say first and foremost that being a mom has been the most challenging yet most rewarding and gratifying role I have played and continue to play. That role has made up an enormous amount of my definition and I don’t want to, in any way, diminish this.  Parenting though, as you know, does not make up all of who we are as individuals.  I’m a mom, sure, but I also have a little fire in me that dims and yet also burns bright in various degrees.

It can be a roller coaster of healthy ups and downs…with moments of soaring above the highest clouds to moments immersed beneath the lowest layers of what feels like a dark muddy swamp.

Is this you too?

For as long as I can remember, I fully experience the brightest of days…yet I have fallen and continue to fall victim to a slew of dark stints of time.

Much of the darkness has stemmed from purpose and passion and those questions that fill my mind.

For several years, I could balance practicality with purpose and passion but with my kids getting older, I feel like purpose and passion had taken a back seat in the mom-van of life. I am not “needed” nearly as much as I once was except, of course, in terms of providing transportation, which has often afforded me FAR too much time alone with my thoughts.

While I have known the importance of creativity in my elements of purpose and passion, as life has continued to move forward, the general busy-ness of mom-life and maintaining a career in a technical field now squeezed the time allotted for creativity to nearly non-existent.

Enter dark days.

And enter a choice desperately calling for attention.

For several years now, I have responded to the question “What do you do?” with the following response:

“I’m an engineer…(and then quietly)…but I also do photography.”

And for as long as I can remember, that response has always made me a little uneasy.  In my heart, I think I’ve always known the right answer.

And today, my official answer is this…I’m a photographer.

With zero hesitation, I AM a photographer. I always have been really. I just had far too many fear-laden insecurities to tell you.

I have a passion for people.

I have a passion for connection.

I have a passion for being me…a mom, a wife, a daughter, a friend, an incredible dancer, R&B singer-extraordinaire (oh, you know you were thinking it too).

And I have a passion for being the best version of me.  Through an internal battle I had been fighting for far too long, there is no possible way that I have externally been this best version.

As a mom, I wish nothing for my kids but to do what makes their hearts happy…and today, I want to be that example for them.  I want them to be brave with their choices and I want them to be brave with offering themselves to this world.  Because without courage, the possibility of greatness is merely just that…a possibility.

What does this all mean in terms of the year???

It means I have opened up more session opportunities and I’m excited for what is to come.  My summer and fall sessions are filling quickly but there IS availability and, for that, I am so thankful and looking forward to the paths I will cross and the magic to be made.

Cheers to new chapters, my friends! Cheers to you! And cheers to wine and chocolate cake.

Start a fire in my soul
Fan the flame and make it grow
So there’s no doubt or denying
Let it burn so brightly
That everyone around can see
That it’s YOU, that it’s YOU that we need
Start a fire in me

 – Unspoken, Start a Fire