Looking back
Recently i have found myself focused on finishing up projects that were half done or I had just begun. I had started a project called ‘Story of Self’ which I will share more of in a later post and also returned to my photos I took for recording a day in a life. This is a project inspired by and originally created by Ali Edwards, one of my scrapbook and storytelling heroes. The photos were taken from a day in march 2020, the 5th to be exact. It just so happened that a couple of weeks later life as we knew it changed significantly and I found myself working through a pandemic on the front line with the rest of the country in lockdown.
time is a healer
Like everyone around the world, life changed from what I thought I knew. I carried on going to work when it felt like everyone else was staying home. I remember driving to work and seeing one other car. Everything was shut. It felt almost apocalyptic. Each day there was a new challenge; understanding new restrictions, Ensuring as a staff group we were getting the correct PPE. Thankfully now we are working through it nearly 3 years later. At the time it was scary. It was hard to keep my creative mojo going when I had time off work. Truthfully I was exhausted, physically, emotionally and mentally.
I did continue to create. I started to play with watercolours. We did art sessions with my family over zoom. This helped all of us connect with each other, without having to make conversation. No one was going anywhere so we didn’t have much to say and everyone was feeling the tension of the heaviness on the world. Creativity became a time to switch off from what was going on and focus on what project I was working on.
I am so grateful I was able to find relief in creativity. It really was a huge help to my mental health. IT also helped provide activities to do with my daughter to kill time when we couldn’t go out anywhere.
A Day in a Life before a new ‘normal’
I was looking back through some photos last month and found I had got as far as printing off the photos to document a day in the life for 5th March 2020. It was now 2 and a half years on, and I finally felt ready to document and memory keep the stories of a very routine day. For me, it was processing how so much had changed since then. Taking time to think over all that we have lived through in the time that followed. I sat down and journalled. It was a cathartic experience in a way. Like being able to step off the treadmill that life has felt like following the outbreak of COVid.
This is one of the reasons I love the process of storytelling with memory keeping and scrapbooking. For me, the stories behind the photos, pretty papers and embellishments are so important. IT is a way for me to reflect and process all that is happening in life. But I get the added fun of bringing in creative play with it and feeding my creative side. IT adds a lightness to what could feel a heavy undertaking at times.
Never too late and letting go of expectations on ourselves
What I have also reminded myself of too, is that it is never too late to document those stories, it is okay to go back. To document stories and scrapbook photos that might have been hard to do when in the midst of living them. Sometimes we need to give ourselves the wonder of time passing to be able to understand the happenings of life especially if it is not an easy time. there is no pressure in when these stories get told. It is for me, and to share with my family as we reminisce and go forward.
I would love to hear in the comments below your ways for processing life with all its ups and downs. Do you enjoy documenting stories behind the photos or is it all about the creative layout? IF you record day in the life, how do you approach it? Would love to hear your thoughts.
