Flawed

admitting your flaws doesn’t make you more flawed.
admitting your flaws often points out your strengths.
my flaws: they’re ten-fingered-spread-eagled declarations of this-is-me. they’re a part of me but they don’t define me. 
they’re not permanent. they’re changeable. adjustable. i can grow in and out of them and become victorious over any of them, should i set my mind to it. 

i think we not only do ourselves, but everyone around us, a great service by saying on occasion: “this was hard” 
“this was ugly” 
“i failed” 
i don’t believe that fighting against our negative parts includes ignoring and covering them up and piling on the positive. 
sometimes it’s pointing them out. 
saying: this-is-how-it-is. 
so that you can acknowledge. 
recognize, deal with it, and move on. 
it makes the positive more beautiful once you’re able to recognize and point out the negative.
or so i feel.

The Kind of Words

in

you’re organic. 

you have a very european style.

you are doing everything you need to right now. everything you need to accomplish what you need to is already in you. 

lovely work. very editorial, soft and romantic, with some quirk.

are you french?

you were made for great things.

but you are really a light and a renegade in the best way.
////

a collection of compliments received lately. 
kind words from strangers. 
remarks from friends. 
passing comments from acquaintances. 

we choose what we hold onto and remember in regards to the kind of words people have spoken to and over us.
these are the kind of words i want to remember. 
i'm letting go of the rest.

Engagement | Bethany + Chris

in

I hope you find someone who is brave enough to enter your storm, and respects you enough to love the size of your waves. I hope you find someone who will relish the calm you can have, and who is eager to set sail on the expanse of your mind. I hope you find someone that can’t escape the love they have for you, because now they have you in their very blood, always reminding them that you are the only sea worth exploring. || T.B. LaBerge

This rainy day engagement session is one of my favorite to date I think.
My favorite weather and my favorite thing to do... Documenting two people in love.
I love people who are at a point in their story together that embodies both a certain kind of newness and yet familiarity. An almost-not-yet tension of excitement and anticipation. A story that only they truly know the telling of. Moments, conversations, experiences that are just for them and make up the history of "us".

Can't wait for your wedding day this winter Chris and Bethany, to continue the telling of this story of yours.
xo

I Love You For Your Just In Cases

in

i love you for your just incases. 

i love you for your maybes.

i love you for your i need spaces.

i love you for your persuade mes.

i love you for your indecision.

i love you for your doubt. 

i love you for your insecurities.

i love you for your i’m really stressed outs.

i love you for your high ups.

i love you for your low downs.

i love you for your smirks and even for your frowns.

i love you for your messes.

i love you for your vanity.

i love you for your i don’t need anybody elses.

i love you for all of your faults, for without them you wouldn’t make sense to me.

Bittersweet

in

there are things in life sometimes that are a mash up of a-little-bit-sad and a-little-bit-sweet but mostly-first-and-foremost very very important. 
i’ve had quite a lot of these things in my life over the past few years. something that perhaps is natural and comes most often with this whole being a twenty-something. 
but it’s most interesting to me now to look back on the sad things and see the sweetness in them. 
and vice versa with sweet things that have a little bit of sadness in them. 
but realizing the correlation between both of these kinds of moments is their importance. 
their importance in the lessons they taught me. in the becoming they allowed me. in the places they took me. in the people i met in them. they all, in their altogether mutual-sad-sweetness are important. 
and they add to the make-up of me and who i am.
i suppose the word for it is bittersweet.

Ode To September

in

you brought with you a grid full of revelations. dawnings. awakenings. 
realizations in the way of this-is-mes and i-belong-heres. 
i often feel as though you do this to me annually. 
you bring with you the promise of a new season. in weather and in spirit. 
a chance to start over. try again. begin once more.
you are forgiving of me in that way.
regardless, i won’t complain. because the habitualness of those promises is something i flourish in. 
i can look back on all of our years together and pin point importance after importance that you ushered me into, through and out of.
i wish you would stay a little bit longer. 
but that is not your nature. 
i suppose if it was you wouldn’t be all-the-way you.
and i don’t want that.
your unchangeable ways is what i love most about you.