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Claw machine
What happens when a woman finally stops being selfless?
What’s possible when she prioritizes herself?
What if she stops believing what she’s been told by society will make her truly happy?I’m stopping on this wild and stormy day in December for the first time in my life.
I choose to listen deeply to myself to answer these questions once and for all.I’m often visited by this vision of a claw machine.
Instead of snatching up toys, the claw is picking up me.
It is forcibly removing me from my previous life—taking me out of the machine—and I’m finally free to explore the world outside of the box.But, since I’ve always existed inside the box, my body and brain become so completely overwhelmed by the relocation, I must pause. I must reflect and rest before I pick myself up and move forward.
That’s where I am now.
I am scared.
I am excited.And yet, I’m stronger than I know.
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Photographer
Alba: “Can I take pictures with your phone?”
Me: “No, but you can use my good camera instead. You just have to promise me you’ll be really careful.”
Alba: “Ok, I’ll be super careful.”Alba then wanders around the house on her own for the first time ever with my Canon EOS 70D after receiving a one-minute lesson on how it works. The following is a selection of her art work. At the end she said, “I am a photographer. That’s what it’s called when you take really good pictures”.
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Raw
I wish I were a live wire
Anyone who dared come close enough to me I’d wreak havoc on
Ready to strike on a moment’s notice.I used to carry my own spark, keeping it glowing and ready to show me the path through my darkness. Now the spark is fading, barely noticeable.
I’m raw—not the pretending version of me—but the one I’ve hidden underneath for months.
She has arrived.It’ll be hard for people to see her, to read her, to understand her, though she’s not meant to be understood. She’s just here, visiting.
Personally, I welcome her.
I’ve felt her in me my entire life, but kept her down and away.I’d like to meet her—she’s the shadowy part of me—that beautiful natural gloom I carry.
She serves one purpose: to let everyone know I am, despite all my efforts, not ok.
She speaks clearly. She tells me I will be ok, but to stop the bullshit of pretending in the meantime.
She reminds me that I’ll never truly get better if no one sees my suffering. She will remain until I am supported enough to arrive in my new reality.
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Integrity
I’m not perfect, but I have integrity.
I shared a home and beautiful children with someone who I believed when he told me he was sorry and would do everything in his power to not hurt me. Again.Maybe it’s naivety, but I believe the words people tell me, especially from someone who convinced me I was his everything, his “home”.
I didn’t know he’d been lying through his teeth the entire time—spinning his sins into my psyche—making me believe something was wrong with me.As I slowly rise from where he hoped to bury me, I now realize it was never me.
Nothing is wrong with me because I live with integrity.
