Failed Self Portraits and Learning to Let Things Go

Last night I went to dinner with friends and family, drank some wine.. and ran into pretty much everyone I have ever met in my whole entire life. That’s the beauty of a small town.. it’s hard to get away from people.

Anyways.. the other beauty of a small town is everyone knows everything there is to know about you - from that time when you were in diapers and cried in church, to every single one of your failed relationships... and everything in between.

So running into people can really go either way at times.. and last night it seemed to be catchup on my failures, lovely.

My personality type is an interesting one (I wrote about that once), and it means I’m extremely hard on myself, take things entirely too personal and seem to fret on stuff.

So after getting home and reflecting over what seemed like not only my lifetime of failures but just small, pointless failures over the last few days.. I was in one of the moods where my mind wonders and I get lost in thought. Generally when I experience this I find myself pulling out my camera to capture a mood..which helps me work through my thoughts and also push my limits.

and that was also a failure.

Yep that’s right.. I couldn’t even take damn self portraits, that’s the kind of fuck up time I was having. I had a vision in my head, and I could not achieve it.. and that drives me crazy.

Sometimes life has a funny way of kicking you in the ass until you snap out of it.. and well that’s what happened.

After getting quite annoyed with the lighting, my face, my camera, that dumb look and trying to figure out why I couldn’t even take a photo... I said fuck it and got out my music and blasted my favorite “fuck it” song... and then put my camera on burst mode and just started shooting my fuck it mood.

From a photographers stand point, they ain’t good, ... but mixed with some shittastic editing to give the retro style I had envisioned in the beginning.. and that lovely fuck it mood... I think they tell a story.

Yes, I’m a failure - god I fail like multiple times a day.
I make mistakes - some big and some small.
I disappoint people - no one more than myself.
Etc etc etc ...

And at the end of the day I can fret on those things and let them define who I am, or I can say fuck it and let them drive me to be something better.

I choose the latter.

Failures are part of life, it’s how we grow and become better versions of ourselves. Do not let them define you, learn from them and, then just let them go.. fuck it... and go be the person you were meant to be.

No one is perfect, and if they say they are.. they are fucking liars and probably more screwed up than you are 😉

Embrace the broken, because those cracks are how the light gets in.

Much Love,

Justine

Edit- for those who asked in the comments: My go to “Fuck it” song -

Rage Against The Machine - Killing in the name of

And have used it another freewrite, one of my favorite actually -

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