I realize I haven't hammered out a personal post in quite a while. I keep feeling like I am incessantly repeating the same thing over and over again : "I don't have the time." I remember a while back posting about how my goal in life was to work to live, not live to work ... and yet, today here I am sitting with thirteen sessions and one wedding to edit and I have approximately 1 wedding and 2 sessions on every weekend coming up from now until the middle of November.
I find myself going. What happened here? What have I gotten myself in to? Can I handle this? Am I grateful, of course... in fact a large part of me feels that gratitude is exactly why I am in this predicament right now. Perhaps I displaced the law of attraction to something bigger than myself... perhaps I need to re-work the way I run this business and my ability to be accessible to over 50 people at any given time as well as somehow maintain being a mother and a wife to my family.
Unfortunately it seems that the first people who are placed on the back burner to my life are the people who I care about the most. I incessantly put my clients, my work, and my time above them... even though that post months ago, before this surge of chaos occurred is EXACTLY what I said I would not be doing.
I thought I would be far away from missing my children's extra curricular activities, never having time to just hang out and be a family. And more importantly, not feeling like every time I do take the time to work these things in to my schedule that I am losing time getting work done. Ironically, even taking the time to stress the behind the scenes emotions I have going on right now also makes me feel like I am wasting time. I haven't been allowing myself any time at all to just relax and enjoy life.
But I do know one thing for certain, years from now I do not want to look back on my life and say ''what do you have to show for this, look at all of the things you missed out on so that you could provide other people with memories that you are taking away from yourself."
And the bizarre sentiment to that statement is that I will have to figure out how I can sit comfortably and not feel antsy or like time is being wasted not working. I spend approximately 70 hours a week working... in fact, I cannot even escape this business in my dreams {how strange is that?}. I have actually had dreams about your sessions, about your opinions, conversations with you, missing deadlines, having people upset with me and taking it out on me for not being able to produce everything in a timely manner.
On any given weekend, I spend approximately 14 hours of the day working on something related to this business.. I typically sit at the computer editing from the time I get up, until the time I have to photograph a session or event, and then when I return I go back to the desk. When I am not out photographing, I am at home editing, responding to e-mails, trying to stay on top of several orders, attempting to keep up with sneak peeks that I've promised as well as stay up-to-date in the social networking realm which is vital to keeping my business alive.
I'm certainly not, by any means, posting this as a vote of sympathy in fact the reason I have been putting off getting this off my chest is primarily because I do not want to place myself in a position that appears I am looking for a sympathy card to get me through this. This is more of my attempt to express openly what is going on behind the scenes in the only way that I know how - pure raw honesty - because there is no other way for me to say how I feel - when you get sentiment from me it's the whole truth, all the truth, and nothing but the the truth.
And I feel like there is a part of me that absolutely has to let you guys know that I am trying incredibly hard to give you a better turn around.. that I understand waiting for your portraits is probably not a cup of tea and although I try my best to make sure that it is known that I am incredibly grateful for being hired by you that it can be hard to find the time to say these things when I have a schedule that even I cannot seem to keep up with.
That being said - I also have to make mention that y'all are the greatest set of troopers on the planet and if you're willing to know in advance that when you book me you are going to have to wait a little bit for portraits {and let's just express that the average turn around is 4-6 weeks, so that people pondering what my idea of a ''long time'' is know the exact period of time that people are waiting for their portraits is}, then you are incredible to me... I truly, from the bottom of my heart have absolutely nothing less than gratitude for that and more importantly that for the most part, you understand how busy I am and I don't have to be faced with answering 'Where are my pictures?' every day. {Thank you for that, because that honestly would make me feel even worse that I am up to my forehead in work.}
On another note - I stayed up until 4:30 in the morning to make time to update this blog and I am exhausted. When I'm still awake as my husband is getting ready to start his work day, that's when I know that I am in for a very long day. With that being said, it's time for me to retire so that I can wake up with two bright eyed beautiful children in the morning and not feel like hibernating instead.
Anyway, I'm certain this likely reads as an awful lot of rambling without a clear concept. That's how I roll, long winded and expressing several thought processes all at the same time. Love it or leave it. ;)
In any case, my primary reason for posting this is to let you all know that although the place I am in right now has it's imperfections and it's a real learning process for me, I am and will always be nothing less than grateful for being a part of your lives and possessing the ability to capture memories that will hopefully stay in your family for years to come. You have made this business what it is today and I will NEVER not praise the bridge that carried me over in to this life but I am human and I am not nor will I ever be perfect.
I know that I need to slow down and take the time to enjoy this life... I intend on doing just that, there will be some necessary and much needed changes to come in the future... but along with that comes allowing myself more time and more importantly ... more time for you.
Thank you for sticking with me, for being patient and for understanding the magnitude of what I have on my plate right now. It means so much to me, you have no idea. Thank you.
<3 Crystal Broussard
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