“You are safe right now.”
“You have everything you need right now.”
“You are healthy right now.”
I flipped off a White House COVID-19 update repeating these lines in my head over and over, attempting to calm my breathing and slow my racing heartbeat. A paralysis washed over my body as I felt a lightheaded tingle creep upward from my toes. My mind couldn’t place the sensations. “What the hell is happening?” I mumbled to myself.
“A panic attack— you’re having a panic attack.” I felt a small relief as my brain fired the message through every cell. My breathing slowed.
That was the moment I decided to stop getting a play-by-play from every news outlet on the current state of the virus. Sensory overload was preventing me from putting one foot in front of the other. I told my boyfriend that I would like to be updated at the end of each day but that for now, I’m unsubscribing from the moment by moment sound bites.
The reality that this is the new normal is unavoidable. I have accepted the losses to my business. I can’t say that I am comfortable with the financial insecurity of this season, but I am numb to the heightened state of anxiety it has caused in days prior. I have accepted that for now “work” will look drastically different than it ever has.
And now, more than ever, I am thankful that my parents encouraged me to major in Public Relations and that my first major contract after college placed me smack in the center of a high stress political campaign that left me so sleep deprived that I wasn’t sure what day it was most days.
Why am I grateful for these things? I am walking into the most critical contract of my life. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been. And it’s an inside job. It may sound silly, but honestly who cares— I’m hiring myself as a consultant to get this ship going again. I’ve done communication and business strategy consulting for several of my clients, so why not apply the framework I’ve used for them on myself?
The first step in picking myself up off the floor is “reminding myself why I came to the plate.” My uncle has always told me to focus on why I started something when things get hard.
To be clear, I’m talking about the deeper why— the why that predicates business plans and revenue.
Why did I come to the plate? Why did I start making pictures? I started making pictures because I want people to know they matter. As I scribbled this line in my journal, a memory sprinted to the forefront of my thoughts.
“Photography is nothing more than a medium for me to communicate to people that they and their ideas matter. So far, it seems to be the most viable and effective medium for me to do that, but I am open to that changing during seasons where other opportunities present themselves,” I told a friend and mentor a few years back.
As I sit in my living room, typing this, I’m nervously laughing as I fight the urge to want to eat my own words. But beyond the nerves, uncertainty and irony of the situation, deep down, I still believe those words to be true. I also believe that I have talents that reach beyond my ability to take pictures.
Photography is and probably always will be my favorite tool, but it’s NOT the only tool.
Rather than continuing to cry in my beer about not being able to be on set right now, I’m trying my best to be thankful for the opportunity to brush dust off other skills and passions that may have been hidden in the background while I’ve let my photography take center stage.
Now that I’ve reminded myself why, it’s time to ask “Why not?” My favorite question in the world is “Why not?” Why not try something new? Why not explore skills and mediums beyond my normal? Why not see what doors open with new tools in hand?
Why not? If something isn’t going to harm me or someone else, a cute animal or the planet— it’s worth exploring.
The past few weeks have royally sucked at more than a moment or two. I’ve felt like the universe was slide tacking me and then kicking the back of my knees at several points. But as the dust settles from the initial shock, I’m not going to keep staring at a locked door, because who knows what might be in the other doors around me.