self
These women. You women. Yes, all of you reading this right now. I'm talking to you. I'm over here, waving humbly from the corner of my family room plunking away on the family desktop computer, surrounded by piles of paper, a to-do list a mile long, and bad light. I'm tired. Already weary of all the small curve balls that this first week back to school has thrown. I sit here, feeling displaced. Because, my office is too much of a mess to sit in. Because my own computer (that is usually in my messy office) crashed. Because life is imperfect and I am just making due, as all of us do when we need to.
I can share all of this with you because I know you understand. Because I know you can relate. You're nodding your head empathetically, supportively, kindly. I know you are. Because you have been here before. Because you care as much about the struggle as you do about the successes. This month, you've applauded my new book. This week, you wished me happy birthday. And today, you're being kind and gentle with me because you know I need it. It's what you do. It's what you've always done. It's just who you are. All of you. I have grown to know that about you over the past five years. It's what makes this place so special. Thank you for that.
This month has been a grand celebration of elevating the everyday. Every single one of your images has meant that you are with me, with us, as we share our lives with one another. That we are all in this together. That's what it's all about. Thank you all so much for joining me, for joining us as we explored what it means to elevate the everyday in honor of my book. It has meant so much to see your responses to each prompt.
And now today, as we wrap up the month, I want to see more of you. We want to see more of each other. Today we are asking you to share yourSELF. Because you so lovingly point your cameras to the world around you, capturing all that matters to you with such tender and kind eyes, it's time to capture yourSELF with the same kind of love. And if for a single minute you feel shy or unphotogenic or not enough, I encourage you to visit the I am Enough Collaborative. The stories there will give you the perspective you need to be good to yourself and share a shot of your beautiful, unique and awesome SELF.
Every comment left here between now and Sunday 9/2 at midnight will be entered to win a copy of my book Elevate the Everyday: A Photographic Guide to Picturing Motherhood. And don't forget to tag your images #sselevate.