Made Up Mind/Alabama Pines

I am certain that I am right where I need to be from the chaos that has been the last few years. I am starting to see good changes in myself. I am feeling better and more balanced as a human being. I haven't been able to say THAT in a while. Sheesh!

I am learning what life is about since slowing down and just enjoying it. And I don't really feel like taking the same roads and paths that once were a complete passion then turned into a looming nightmare, and as I struggle to finish what I have piled in a heap on my desk, I realize I HAVE to be honest with myself about this pile. I have to take a dose of reality by way of a self and business audit. I hate making people wait. I hate waiting. Why am I treating others in a way I do not want to be treated? It's the biggest complaint I get. I know how bad I am at that. And aside from some major computer and card issues I have had in the past few years because I have pushed my cameras and computer to the point of exhaustion, I am lucky. Lucky to have only pissed off some. (All of those whom I TRULY apologize to!) Every single client I have had in the past 3 years should be raving pissed off at me. I wasn't doing a good enough job on the technical standpoint and my scheduling/work flow/life balance was neither efficient or sanity saving. This equation equals Jamie-0, Photography- 0. Nothing about this is satisfying to my clients, or my self. Time to make it work, and either then, end it all and start a new project, or only take the clients I can see myself taking on without infringing on my own basic need for balance and sanity.

So many more dreams have began to sprout since being happy with the balance I am experiencing right now. I'm coming into a new understanding of myself. I am learning about Sensory Processing Disorder, something I have been recently (and probably the most correctly) diagnosed with. I have shared with my blog readers in the past about my depression. I wrote through a lot of it through this blog to people who were here to view my photography. I have been called a cry baby who needs a journal, asked why I share that stuff since it is so personal; and also told many good things, such as I helped someone by being relational through my writing, and that I should write a book based on my experiences. All of which I have taken into consideration. The balance of writing in a raw form as I would write in a journal and sharing it with someone feels ok to me. I'm only being honest. I am not perfect, and can't even pretend to be. I am flawed. Completely flawed. And I know others are NOT ok with that, but I am. I have always felt like I perceived things differently and felt things in my own thinking was odd compared to others. Now learning about this diagnosis is helping me to understand myself and why I feel the way I do sometimes, and in return, I know how to help myself and my business.

As a child I was diagnosed with ADD and given Ritalin to calm me down. Well, the Ritalin never worked for me, and then later on in teenage life a depression started because I couldn't stop doing everything differently (or wrong in some people's eyes), but I couldn't explain it to anyone. Because I didn't know why. My rationality and emotional senses were in battle, and the information provided to store, in a traffic jam on the way there.


With the multiple familial deaths in a short period of time, work pressures, and then divorce stress, it was enough to drive a sane person to madness. My symptoms of SPD intensified and drove me to near mental breakdown. I was overcome by rage of the pressures I felt, bitter, angry, and careless because I couldn't focus on anything. When I had any chance in the world to experience quiet, I took full advantage. But sometimes I couldn't work not only because my brain was in sensory overload, but also because my equipment would not work. I do not think this was coincidental. I think this was a helping hand from above. I needed to slow down. I needed to think things through. I needed a helping hand, everyday, until I could accomplish something in full.



Baby Steps, child.

K.I.S.S.
(Keep it simple, stupid.)

I will press on.

I will not give up so easily, anymore.

I will follow God's word in my life.

I will fulfill my soul to it's maximum capacity in this life with things that matter to my family.

I will leave a legacy.

And So it shall be.

Please have patience with me. I am getting there.