Family Photos: The imperfect puzzle.

 I have always vowed to be real and authentic. Too much of the world is filled with filters and fake media that creates an unrealistic expectation. It requires me to be vulnerable and raw and sometimes stand in the shade instead of the light but isn't that life? The most perfect, imperfect puzzle. And that's just what we are. Imperfect in so many ways that it's beautiful all on its own. Like how a shattered vase, glued together sometimes makes the most beautiful piece of art. 

I'm not totally sure what I will do with these family photos yet. They are so beautiful in every way except one. This particular shoot carried hard feelings, fights, raw emotions and tears shed. I can't ignore those hard memories when I look at them. Photos are so so important to me. They carry weight and have feelings attached to them. When I look at our pictures I'm sucked right back into that moment regardless of it was a beautiful moment or not. So, although I admit, family photos are hard.. for everyone, it's not the perfect picture I am looking for. It's the happiness that is within them that I want to capture. I want to feel that happiness when I look at them. 

This moment wasn't that. It was a "hurry up and smile" while we rushed and prayed we didn't get rained out. We did. It poured on us as we ran as fast as we could to the van to try to salvage hair and outfits. It was filled with constant fighting and bickering. They were defiant about arms around their siblings, smiled only because they had to and just wishing it would be over faster than usual. 

Im not gonna lie, it killed my mom heart a bit. Even as I write this tears fill my eyes. I just wanted, so much, for them to be happy. I want to look at these photos printed in our home and remember the laughs and inside jokes like our usual family photos but these ones just don't do that. They humble me in an uncomfortable way. A picture really is worth a thousand words.. and feelings. 

And yet, I will learn to cherish these too. I will change the story behind them. I will remember the sticky air with the warm ocean breeze. Running to the car in the rain and ditching our sandals on the beach because we were getting drenched. I'll remember Brian checking the rain radar at 5am only to confirm that the rain wouldn't start until hours after we were going to be finished our photos. Jokes on us, that part if funny, of course that would happen during this, already difficult, shoot. I'll remember these photos of our sweet Penny making her look like a full teenager! The individual photos of her are some of my favourite photos of her. She is so so beautiful inside and out. I know deep down our boys tried but were just annoyed by each other and everything that morning. I know it's so hard to step outside yourself when you're just having a moment. Nearly impossible, I get it. 

Regardless of our imperfect puzzle, it is still beautiful. It still holds the most precious people on earth to me. Not every moment will be filled with happiness and thats ok. That's life. It can get messy, sticky and so hard but it's what we do with those moments that matters the most. I will remember resetting in the ocean when I gave up on these photos. When I called it quits. When the emotions attached to the physical photo felt too raw and hard to print so why keep going. But we didn't give up the day. We reset and enjoyed paradise again. Leaving our photos behind us, packing up our outfits and conceding defeat and that's ok. 

I want all of their bad days as a mom. I want all their good days as a mom. Every one of them. I want them to come to me when they're mad, hurt, upset or just feel off. I want to celebrate their smallest wins and their biggest victories. It won't always be picture perfect but I really do want it all. 

Brian and these kids mean more to me than anything else on earth and though we aren't perfect, we are a family, through and through, forever and ever. We are there for the good, the bad, the ugly and even the picture perfect moments when they turn out better than we had hoped. We can't choose when all these moments happen so we wave the flag, hand in hand, and walk through it together. That is what I'll remember from these photos. They're not broken. They're just different. They just prove that we can be annoyed, mad and frustrated and yet, come together.. waiving the white flag and resetting into the life we made and that right there, is more beautiful than any photo ever taken. 

It's silent and full of power. Its love. That's family.

So, I will find the beauty in these photos and remember that through it all, we stick together. And that might be the most beautiful imperfect puzzle I've ever seen.