If you’re new here, welcome! I’m always looking for magic hidden in everyday life. I call them Tiny Things. ✨🌙
It was the first day of school last Wednesday. My daughter is a Senior in high school. We live down the street from the Elementary school. I used to walk her in the mornings when she was little. I always feel nostalgia looking at all the little kids with backpacks half their size, strapped to their backs, holding their parents’ hands.
These days, my husband takes the morning shift and drives her to school. I head out to take Midge the pug for a walk. I was on the sidewalk when a dad ran past me, a little sign clutched in his hand. You know those signs people buy where they fill in the grade and the name with chalk?
I imagine his wife must have forgotten to take the photo that morning – she remembered when walking her kiddo to school. The thought of having missed the first day of school photo with the little sign – too much for a mom to contend with. She texted her husband. He frantically had to find the sign, then run three blocks to the school.
I used to make a photo album every year at Christmastime. I would spend days going through all our photos of the year, cherry-picking my absolute favorites. Then I would go on one of those photo book sites, carefully lay it all out, and tell little stories on the pages. At the beginning of the book, I would write a letter to my daughter. Then I would gift them to the family and one to myself.
Around the fifth grade, I got this job as an art director. I was already running my own design business. But a client asked if I was interested in also being their art director. It came with benefits. So, this self-employed designer said yes.
For the next four years, I worked for them full-time. And I kept up my part-time client roster. I worked A LOT. But this allowed my husband and me to wipe out our debt and create a nest egg again.
But then, the company had to let me go after COVID.
I felt this stirring in my chest. It was excitement. A new beginning was upon me.
I looked at my husband and told him I had no idea what I was going to do. But not this anymore. Those savings gave me time to explore a new beginning.
Over those four years, I stopped doing those photo albums. I had no time to do anything on the side. I let so many things go. And that might account for how hollow I began to feel - my ability to answer things that creatively called me was shut down.
On Wednesday morning, after watching that guy run down the street with that sign in his hand, I came back home, pulled out that stack of albums – kindergarten through the 5th grade, and began to berate myself to my husband. “Why did I stop doing this?” and “Ugh, I’m so mad at myself.”
To which he replied, “Do them now.”
I laughed with watery eyes. Then gave him a look.
How do we get so busy and stop doing the things that are most important to us?
So much time lost to working so hard on other people’s things.
But the thing is, I would not be here today if I had not worked so hard then.
And that is life. I like to think that maybe it was all leading me here.
I learned so much about marketing, launching a product, and running a small business from that company. Which is the hardest part of being an artist: having to sell your own art.
I may not have a pile of albums to show my daughter, but I did show her what it looks like to go after your dreams. She lives with two artists who spend every day working on things we want to put into the world with no exit plan.
I may not have the curated photo albums. But I have a folder of each year filled with 1000s of photos of the three of us together.
I never missed all the important moments. Or all the little ones I collected daily.
Nothing you can buy will ever make you feel what it is like to wake up every day doing what you love.
Until Next Time 🌙 ✨
Kim
P.S. Have you noticed any Tiny Things this week? Please share in the comments!
on my way to work earlier this week i got to witness two baby deer prancing around in the dew-covered grass, not a care in the world. that was certainly a Tiny Thing to me c:
Lovely. I also have 95,000 photos, my kids are 40 now. WOW, I am facing a huge sorting activity. Do it year by year so you don't arrive at a later date with toooooo many photos. Every expression was priceless to me, now I do not need 95,000 photos!