Saturday, April 26, 2014

Summer Throwback


Last summer, my friend Tyler and I spent a day out riding bikes and playing at an abandoned picnic area. Tyler, being a photographer, had a camera in tow and snapped some photos of me. He sent them over to me the other week, and I thought I'd share them. Check out his other stuff here and if you're in Minnesota & looking for a great wedding photographer, Tyler's your man. 

It was such a trip to see these photos. I had completely forgotten about him taking them. I see them now and cannot believe that this was only last summer - August or July. I seem so young - and I look so tired! This was around the onset of my boyfriend, who was in recovery for addiction, relapsing, and the onset of the stress that was catapulted into my life because of his relapse. I see photos of me from when that all happened, and the months that followed, and I look so run over. My eyes seem empty and helpless. I want to look at these photos and yearn for summer and bike rides and shorts. Instead I look at these photos and see this endless sadness of knowing what I went through in the months that followed. This initial sadness, this initial feeling that everything was over, barely touched on the hurt that would follow. These photos are a portrait of that initial sadness - a small shower before the torrential downpour.

In addition to this feeling, these photos bring about sadness for two other reasons. For one, I am my ideal weight here. My thighs are touching and my hips are round and curving. I'm happy at this weight. I feel so healthy and sure of myself at this weight. Right now I am 10 pounds lighter, feeling feeble and weak. I look in the mirror and feel ashamed to see myself like this, in a constant battle to be at my comfortable weight once more. The second reason that I'm sad when I see these photos is a bit lighter - it was on this day that the platform broke off my 7Up shoes! I've glued it back on but dare not take these guys out anymore. Luckily, I had bought a new pair of shoes at a garage sale just 10 minutes earlier for a mere 25 cents. I threw those on and sadly retired my 7Up platforms to my bike basket. 

I'm trying to not be too sad when I see these photos. I'm trying to look at them as a different time in my life. Maybe it was a good time, maybe it was a bad time - and maybe I'm in a better place now, maybe I'm not. I'm still trying to decide. But I'm in a place now that I have to accept, just as, when these photos were taken, I was accepting the place that I was in then. So, on that note, enjoy these photos. They are, on their own, rather beautiful I think. Tyler is an amazing photographer and he always captures a true side of me. I see a sad side of me here, and I wanted to share a piece of the story that goes along with how I see them. I hope that you'll be able to see (and appreciate!) that piece, too.







10 comments:

  1. I really like these photos. I like the sadness and melancholy in them. Not every photo has to be happy and at least you have a specific memory associated with them which makes this set somewhat special in its own way. It tells a story

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  2. I see the same beautiful friend I always see - she may be one plagued by thoughts, my memories, by worries of what is going to happen, of what is happening, but she is still strong, still someone I completely admire. She is the friend I met but a month or so earlier - a friend who put her trust in me, who travelled to meet me, and shone her light on my life. A friend I love and adore and one I am so proud of.

    I know right now is hard - everything is uncertain, unsure, up in the air - but it won't stay this way. I am never worried, Chloe, where you are concerned, because you have a bright future ahead of you. Of that I am 100% sure. It's just taking time for you to get there. But you will. I'd bet my bottom dollar on that :)

    Smile, darling girl. These times are over, and you've got bigger and better times ahead. All my love,

    xxx

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    1. Tori, you sweet thing! That brought tears swelling to my big sad eyes. Thank you thank you darling girl. I'm fairly certain of myself most of the time, but lately has been one of those dark shadows of uncertainty and confusion. I'll get through it, and your kind words are a reminder of that xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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  3. I think it's crazy how knowing a back story to a photo can really change how you look at it. If I had not known what you were going through when these were taken, I probably wouldn't have looked at them and felt sadness. They're beautiful and if anything, the story only adds more to the photos than what was there before.

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    1. Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Janey! I agree. This blog is full of photos of me, but so rarely do I talk about what's behind the face in relation to the photos. I think that the photos are very wonderful - my friend Tyler is a talented photographer - but, at least for me, there's more to them than simply something to look at briefly and admire as pretty. There's very raw emotion there, and I want to encourage people to see that in them as well.

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  4. i adore these photos, but especially that you took some time to write about them makes them even more beautiful. we're so constantly flooded by images these days and so many things go unexplained that it's hard to believe/easy to forget a lot of photos actually mean and represent something more than things and people. they represent time and actual feelings.

    and i really like your acceptance of those feelings when you see these photos. i think that's the best way to put yourself in a "better" place. or in less words, you got this ;) xoxoxox

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    1. Carrie, thank you! I feel like, especially with my blog where I have photos that are supposed to highlight my clothes, not my feelings, it was important to talk more in depth about what these photos actually mean to me. We're bombarded by "selfies" and all types of portrait photography these days, that we flash past a lot of it without thinking much about what's behind it. It was important to me that this set of photos had meaning, even if the rest do not.

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  5. These are so gorgeous, oh my word! Film? New follower! Alex

    tobebeautifulingodseyes.blogspot.com

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    1. Hi Alexandra! Thank you - and welcome to the blog!

      I am almost certain that these are film. Tyler usually shoots with film, though he also usually has two or three cameras with him at a time, so it could be a mixture of both!

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  6. I also can't believe I didn't comment on this (I even pinned one of these pictures...is that creepy) these are gorgeous! So interesting how looking at old pictures can take you right back to the time they were taken.

    ♥ perfectly Priya

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