me

This was a "homework" assignment of sorts. I had to take some pictures of myself. Its hard posting them here. It hurts me to be real with myself.. to acknowledge the weight I have put on since Hannah came along, to see the challenges ahead of me. As I mentioned before, Joleen and I have been journaling quite a lot in preparation for the new issues of Portals coming up. The theme is art journals and we figured we needed to journal our way through it. Having the support of each other has enabled us to dig in to a it more personal topics than we had touched on before. I think both of us struggle with being ok with ourselves, our appearances, our beauty, our insides...

I have always admired that Joleen posts so many pictures of herself on her blog and uses those images in her work. She is not the classic blond haired, blue eyed, size 2 beauty that we see in so many magazines but instead a real person, real size with tremendous beauty within and without. In my eyes she is more beautiful than those unrealistic images we see in the media. I know I have the gift of "knowing" her but a big part of what I admire is her courage to put it out there. So following is those steps I am posting pictures of myself. It is uncomfortable but I feel a teeny bit stronger for doing it and I hope thids will help me on my road to realize what is good and beautiful about ME.

Thank you Joleen for this little push, whether you know it or not. I am grateful that you have come back into my life and honored the friendship that we share. I love you.