Last year, just before Christmas, I flew home from a jam-packed trip to Singapore. I was tired, overwhelmed with my to-do list and all kinds of exhausted. I’ve never mastered the art of sleeping on a plane, actually I’ve never much mastered the art of sleeping at all. In a matter of hours {after arriving home} our house would be filled with people. We had no food in the fridge, and about eleventy billion loads of washing to get through. It was just stuff. Stuff taking up space in my mental to-do list.
My coping mechanism was down, with the jet-lag and Christmas-time hustle and bustle around me. I skipped lunch and had a rather pathetic moment on the lounge, where I just stopped and got teary. “I’m just so tired,” I sobbed. It was like an out of body experience. I could see just how pathetic I looked, and sounded. My Ma did what mums do, and whipped me up a sandwich and I moved on from my embarrassing moment.
A few parcels waited for me at home, so after I did the groceries and unpacked them at home… I opened the packages. There was a gift for Bronte from a PR company, a dress I’d ordered, and some beautiful, unexpected gifts from readers of my blog. I loved them all but one in particular touched me so much.
The card read:
Dear Chantelle.
These small gifts are just a token of my gratitude for making a tough year a little brighter. I am having chemo 3 times a week and your photo-a-day challenge has given me such a positive focus even on bad days. As if that wasn’t enough you came up with the gift exchange and I have made a lovely friend in the UK who loved my gift!
I cried. Not because I was tired or in a need of a sandwich, but because I was touched. This stuff we do online isn’t in some alternative Universe, it’s real.
Photo a day has changed my life. It’s allowed me to meet people all over the world. I’ve connected with people in far away places that I’ll probably never get to visit. I love being part of the photo a day community. Emails and messages are exchanged behind the scenes, comment exchanges happen here and on other social platforms, friendships are born.
There’s a little bit of magic in it. It creates this spark inside me and others, I think it’s something to do with the creativity. The connecting. The fun.
I’ve never known what I wanted to do in my life. In High School we’re asked to choose a career path. Some of my peers knew exactly what they wanted to do, picked their appropriate subjects and went on to be Engineers, Pharmacists and Child Care workers.
I didn’t know.
I flicked through the careers book and picked one that seemed OK, and decided that’s what I’d be. An Advertising Account Executive. I had no idea what it involved, but making a final decision {whatever it was} appeased my teacher.
I worked in retail selling clothes. I sliced bread in a bakery for a while. I even cleaned motel rooms for a weekend. I became a Nanny for 12 years and loved it, but knew that it wasn’t it. It wasn’t my thing. And then I started a blog. I worked as an Editor and a Social Media Editor, then now as a full-time blogger {and freelance writer}. If I’d flicked through that careers book today, I’m still not sure what I’d pick. But creating content and being part of amazing communities feels right. It feels like it could be ‘it’.
Photo a day has made me stop, if only for 5 minutes a day, to check into my creative side. To take a photo and of whatever it may be, to capture a part of my day – each day of the year, and to be present. There were some days when it was hard, and some days it was easier. But there were always people playing along… sharing parts of their lives too. Keeping that spark alive inside me.
Photo a day has changed my life.
