My mom used to say something that me that always annoyed me in the moment, but makes a lot more sense now: “Things may not end up how you planned, but they end up how they’re supposed to”. I debated making this post at all - sometimes letting people on the internet see too far into your brain is a bad thing, and once you hit ‘publish’ it’s out there forever.
This year was pretty horrible, despite all the amazing things I experienced. I don’t post much of my personal life on the internet because I don’t like imagining what people are thinking about the most intricate parts of my life. Despite feeling that way, I did share that my mom passed away at the beginning of this year. She wasn’t old; early 60s and had just retired. She was ready for the ‘Golden Years’ of her life with my dad; buying an RV and driving across the country, becoming ‘Grammy Lou’ to my first nephew, watching her children grow their own families with the satisfaction that she got them relatively unscathed to adulthood. Unfortunately and rather cruelly, life decided that that was not to be the way things would go. My mom was diagnosed initially with ALS, which was then found to be exacerbated by Lyme disease; a horribly and yet mercifully fast decline that occurred in under 6 months from start to finish.
Losing my mom was the tipping point on a pot that had been ready to boil over for several years, AKA my life. I have been a self employed photographer for more years than I can count at this point; phasing in and out of full and part time as the economy flexed. People always ask me how it is to be self employed, and the most succinct answer I can give is ‘stressful’.
As someone who has been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I have always grappled with the need for various degrees of control in my life, and being self employed was no exception to the rule. It allows me to control every aspect of my business to my own detriment; every success and every failure is a direct result of what I do or don’t do. As you can imagine, it’s a very bumpy ride that you cannot get off of unless you want to quit and go work for someone else. At the risk of this blog post becoming a dissertation, I’ll assume you understand what I’m getting at.
When my mom died, I did the thing you’re not supposed to do and I ignored my grief by burying myself in work. I actually don’t remember much of this year; it was a blur of pain and fatigue and a flat gray sadness that still sits in the pit of my gut even now. I burnt myself out so profoundly that I considered leaving the cosplay community and the community that I’ve built over the past almost 15 years on multiple occasions. The worst part about all of this is that I did so many fun, amazing things this year; including visiting the PNW for the first time, going back to Colorado, and several other personal life things like going to Halloween Horror Nights for the first time, drinking around the world at Epcot with my best friend, and traveling to the wildflower festival in Crested Butte, CO with some of my favorite people and colleagues in the world who I’m so blessed to call my friends.
The thing about grief is that it doesn’t care that you did fun things, or that you were happy for brief moments in time. The thing about burnout is that it doesn’t care that you’ve suffered two incredibly profound losses in the last two years. Burnout is a kind of grief in my opinion; you’ve basically emptied yourself of everything you had emotionally and creatively, and now you’re staring down the barrel of having to create beautiful things when life feels decidedly horrible and un-beautiful.
I create beautiful things for other people constantly. It’s literally my job, and it’s the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. It’s the thing that sits me down at the same desk every day, where I spend countless hours staring at a screen and willing my brain and my fingers to communicate in such a way that art is created. But what happens when the things you’re creating don’t feel beautiful anymore? When nothing feels beautiful, but you still have to do the job you’ve been paid for, so you scrape the bottom of the ragged cardboard ice cream container looking for a scrap of artistic ability to get you through the day? Through the next week, or the next month? What about a whole year of scraping the bottom, and suddenly there’s a big hole punched in the bottom of the container and there’s nothing left to give?
If the ice cream container analogy didn’t do it for you, I believe lots of people use ‘pouring from an empty cup’ synonymously. If you’re looking for advice on how to get through it, I actually don’t have any. I continued to slog through work and life and social responsibilities until I started to feel better, and that doesn’t work for a lot of people. I’m very lucky to have an incredible support system via my partner, family, and friends; as well as years of therapy which gave me a toolkit that I still use today. I found beauty in things that inspired me, and I allowed myself to create art outside the responsibilities of my job which invigorated me. I gave myself more days off, and did fun things with my friends and partner to have a break from dissecting my art. I tried to imagine myself doing any other job on the planet, no holds barred, and nothing made me feel the creative burn that photography does. I wrote, and read, and painted, and drew, and baked. And I came back to the job that I love because it makes me feel like nothing else in my life does.
I don’t know what 2026 has in store for me; hopefully no more major losses for at least a year. My hope is that I will have a little bit better of a handle on the whole ‘work-life balance’ thing next year, because the small changes I’ve already made have improved my life so much. I want to talk more about my creative process and connect more with other artists. I want to give back to the community that has given me so much over my career, because without the cosplay community I’d probably be photographing high school seniors still. I hope this small glimpse into my head was refreshing and maybe a little bit of a window into the life of someone you know of but don’t know personally. Maybe it’s a reminder that we’re all dealing with hidden things every day, and being kind despite others circumstances is what makes us better people.
Anyway, here’s to 2025 - you mostly sucked but were also bright in several spots. May 2026 be less sad and more bright, even if it’s just a little.