Hey you. It’s me. Just checking in and spilling the beans on some things because if there’s one thing I want you to know, it’s that I made a lot of mistakes this past year. So, free yourself from any pressure to be like me. My journey is mine and it won’t be a perfect fit for anyone else.
A year ago, I was putting the finishing touches on my website and preparing to launch AB Photo…all while starting back as a full time student and still adjusting to married life (just a little over two months after our wedding – holy cow we were such babies!). That was literally this week a year ago. While it’s a little easier to think fondly of that wild season now, it truly was just a little insane.
I left my apartment between 6:30 and 7:30, spent all morning at class, worked a part time job most afternoons, scrambled to study and write papers in the early evening, and then would stay up until 12 or 1am most nights editing, responding to emails, executing my marketing strategy, and trying to learn this crazy world of starting a business at 21.
And y’all. It just wasn’t working for me. I missed my husband; I was sick all the time because I never took care of myself; I gained weight because I never had time to go to the gym and never gave myself the freedom to just get out and go on a walk; and I starting struggling with body insecurity in a way I hadn’t dealt with in years.
My business was growing rapidly and I may have looked like a total success on the outside, but I was falling apart.
It’s so important for me to be real with you because I get the pressure. I felt it too, and truthfully I’m still waiting for it to fully go away. Panic attacks always felt just moments away and had to start carrying paper bags with me everywhere I went because I never knew when the next one was going to hit. I was so scared, overwhelmed, and felt crushed on the pressure only I was putting on myself. And depression started being a part of my every day.
The next few weeks as we get close to my first anniversary as AB Photo, I am going to share a little more about what that journey looked like – in a way I haven’t opened up about before – the good, that hard, the moments that made me lose my breath in disbelief that this was actually something that was mine.
And if there is anything in particular you’d like to know, just shoot me an email or drop a comment below. I’ll make sure it get’s included in this little mini series and am always so honored when you take the time to reach out.
