I want to piggy back on Saturday’s post about being in the picture.  I think the main point is this: life isn’t perfect.  We need to celebrate what we have while we are here—we need to celebrate that we are here.  We need to remember that we have a short time here and we are meant to make the most of it.  Instead of living for some unrealistic ideal, we need to learn to sit in the beauty that is simply existing.  The creativity and possibilities we have.  Sharing our understanding with each other, learning from each other, creating with each other.  Time moves so much faster than we think.  If we spend all of our lives waiting for the perfect moments or thinking we only need to document and appreciate those big moments, then we miss so much.  We miss the opportunity to go for things we love because it doesn’t match some ideal in our minds.  Just because it isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.  And maybe it doesn’t look how we thought it would—does that mean we need to diminish the experience that actually happened?  Looking back now, I know this: Never let a special time go by because the image looks different than how we picture it or expect it to be.  We don’t live life for how the picture looks, we live for how it feels. The joy, the love, the people.  It was never about being perfect, it was about how it feels.

There are certain things that can’t be captured on film but there are some things that once on film will forever bring us right back to that moment.  We can feel what we felt then.  If we spend our time trying to make it look a certain way, we lose the authenticity of what actually happened—and that shows.  So instead of trying to make things look a certain way, or avoiding the camera because we think we look a certain way, embrace the moment.  Let it be documented in all of its imperfect glory because those moments, that particular instant will never happen again.  We can’t document the entirety of our lives, but we will always retain the feelings we had.  I don’t want to continue to mourn what I didn’t document because I didn’t think I was good enough to be in the picture.  I don’t want to put off my life until I look a certain way or until things around me look a certain way—time is passing no matter what it looks like.  This is what we have—right here, right now.  I cherish these feelings, these moments.  And looking back, the little moments are all we have.  Those are the things that make up the core of who we are.  My life was more than just the big things—it was the sum of all of those moments that led up to it.  We live every day—not just the big moments.  Each is as important as the last, and I will always remember that.