My Mental Hairball Is Gone

For the time being, at least.

Whatever was clogging up my mental workings appears to have been coughed up and now I'm feeling much better, thank you.

Thank you for the many many kind and loving wishes, emails and comments. I'm sure that your special brand of patience and goodwill was a large part of my swift recovery.

***

It's a really funny paradox to feel angst over losing a job you didn't really like and you knew you should be leaving anyway. I guess my inner Control Freak, who would have much rather been the one to say See ya, wouldn't want to be ya! was disgruntled at not being given that opportunity, thus creating the mental hairball of fuzzy, dark depression. As a friend used to say to me, "here's another f*cking opportunity for growth and development."

But it's a new (rainy) day and I feel fine.

***

While I was in my funk, wearing stale sweats and eating plain rice, I kept revisiting my photos and my faces for i live here: SF and it was really the only thing that made me feel good. I realized that in this project, even though I consider it still quite new, I've been meeting articulate, passionate people who have taught me things I didn't know.

In meeting them, I've wandered parts of the city I hadn't been to before, favorite places of the people in the photos, places they wanted to share and have be part of their photographs. They told me about their lives, why they live here and what they care about. A lot of information for a first date, but all interesting and positive things.

For the most part, these people are total strangers to me before we meet. I have no idea what they look like. And then after a few minutes, they're showing me their favorite parts of San Francisco, and we're talking and sharing our thoughts and interests. And then at the end of the shoot, when I've edited their photos, when they are so excited about how their photos turned out and are so very very happy, I feel like a million bucks.

I just can't get over how cool and rewarding the whole experience is, and how much I love it and look forward to these meetings. For those of you who haven't yet met Cari or Megan, I hope you will stop by and see what they've written. And there's more in the pipeline, so that's really something I look forward to, and I hope you do too.

***

In this last week, I was really worried that I had run out of things to write about here at tangobaby. Even reading other blogs and leaving comments seemed like an effort, and that scared me because I love blogging, all aspects of it, and it made me sad to think that all of a sudden, that particular well of pleasure had dried up without warning.

But the thoughts are trickling back, and I know that the more I write, the more they'll start flooding back, and so relief is in sight there, too.

***

My mom has always been my biggest and best supporter, fan and understanding soul. A few weeks ago, even before all of this falderall with work, she sent me a check and told me to buy something for myself: batteries for the camera, a lipstick, whatever. It's from her little savings account, so that makes me feel guilty as heck even though I know it makes her happy to send me the money.

But I feel like at my age, I should be sending her money. So I hadn't cashed the check, thinking that I would save it to spend on her when she comes to visit me next time, or for a rainy day. The rainy day happened to be in my head though, and while I was sitting there, looking at my photos, I wanted desperately to do something with them that would make them look even prettier.

After a day of being tethered to my chair, I made this site below and I'm very proud of it. I used the money my mom gave me to buy the template and the domain name, and even if it's a total vanity project, I feel like I've really accomplished something and it cleared the dark clouds in my mind. I had no idea what I was doing when I started and by the end of it all, I was routing DNS thingys and hosts and things I still don't understand but it works.

See what you think (click on the logo to take you there). And thank you, mommy, because you were my first believer.