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Kind of mid year depth year check in

Yes, that’s up there with some of my least imaginative post titles ever! I guess it’s a sign of how busy I am with my other sites these days, that when I thought I’d pop over and check in, it took me half an hour of updates to get this one displaying properly…!

It’s the middle of July, and approaching a year since I left the day job and struck out on my own, and nearly seven months into my Depth Year, so I thought I’d have a really quick check in.

Except it’s gone midnight, and my finger joints hurt, so it might end up being quicker than planned and ironically not very in depth!

So let’s start off with that time I realised I’d never been that close to a squirrel in real life before:

Mainly I wanted to sneak in to say how much I enjoyed shooting Graduation for my old day job this year – it’s always been my favourite time of year on campus so getting to be in the thick of it every day was a joy, and reconnecting with old colleagues was fun too.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz8zwVRHjxh/

Though there were some very entertaining conversations – “you look really professional with all your gear there. What is it you do nowadays?” “Well, funny you should mention that… I’m a professional photographer!”

Bless them.

I’ve had some amazing clients this year too – SO excited to see them use their photos to grow their businesses & their dreams. More on that over on the brand blog!

I genuinely can’t believe this is my life, most days – though I never expected to have to do it without Dad here, this is for the most part the life I always dreamed of, and the work life I have plotted and schemed and worked towards for the last ten years.

I’m also the proud owner of a Sony a7iii and LOVING the shift to mirrorless – this both goes perfectly with and completely contravenes my depth year plans, as it lets me go further into my photography career, but obviously isn’t making the most of existing kit…! But in a weird way it is, as I sold all the stuff I wasn’t using and invested in a new body and a 135mm lens to complement my existing kit… and suddenly my work is shining even brighter. So I’m counting that as a major win. Shooting dual system is interesting too – I’ll probably start a little series about that over on carlawatkins.com as I’m intrigued by the similarities and differences.

Anxiety has been at an all time low for the last few months and I am crossing EVERYTHING that that stays the same. Confidence has been at an all time high for some time now and again, hoping that stays the same – there will always be ups and downs because creativity, but I’m feeling good for now.

There was Bothwell. Bothwell needs its own post as the first run in April was profoundly, permanently and unexpectedly life-altering for me.

There’s a grant application in the works and I’ve had two fantastic shoots with a wonderful friend, and several more in the works with people I love. Is there anything better than getting to work and play and create art with people you love?!

I’ve taken on a couple of mentoring clients which is exciting – for business systems, visibility, content & growth rather than specifically for photography, and I’m loving spending time on that side of the business.

Intriguingly, and very appropriately for a depth year review, I am LOVING creating new opportunities and avenues and products and things within a business, rather than constantly creating new businesses. This is another unexpected development, but one I’m very happy about.

Much to my surprise (and to no one else’s surprise at all), I am really enjoying networking and have joined a couple of groups – the ones that meet at 6am can fuck right off, but the friendly ones I’ve found which meet over lunch (very civilised) are lovely.

I’m experimenting with tattoos – temporary but longer term solutions, rather than real ones, because there still isn’t anything I want on my body for ever and always.

Morning pages have made a welcome return to my life, and the Artist’s Way continues to delight and astound me on a daily basis.

Luna and Clover just fill my days with love and purrs, and emergency snuggles when Luna runs in meowing, panicking that the cuddles have run out. I love these two little furry beings more than I ever expected I could – I genuinely don’t think I could love them more if I had given birth to them, and I am certainly keener on being their parent than I am on ever parenting a human.

Luna’s newest trick is to snooze in the doorway of my office, so that I can’t escape without giving her cuddles, biscuits or both! Clover is recovered from her ordeal last year, and is ruling the outdoors with a firm, fluffy paw – her current favourite snoozing spot is right in the middle of my flower bed.

Mumski and I are moving through our days as best we can – still grieving, still so sad under the surface that I try not to think about it because I can’t bear it. Dad makes his presence felt regularly, and this is a huge comfort to me, but I miss him so much I still don’t have the words for it. But I am very lucky to be their daughter, and I’m so grateful that Mum and I have each other. I don’t know what I’d do without her.

On that note, it’s now nearly 1am and I’m shooting in the morning, so bedtime for me. It’s nice to be back!

At peace

Today we laid Dad’s ashes to rest.

As ever, I find it hard to write about grief, my own and also Mum’s. This year has in many ways been harder than the first, as the reality of life without Dad starts to sink in, and the buffer of essential admin starts to shrink.

We both seem ok on the surface, yet we are so far from ok underneath. Tears are never far away, and though we go through the motions of life, neither of us are fully living, and neither of us can really conceive of a life without Dad.

To the outside world, it probably seems that the grieving period should be over by now.

I’m learning daily that grief doesn’t lessen, when you loved someone so very much and were loved in return. The pain of losing Dad is as raw today, and every day, as it was the day he went to the big bar in the sky.

A wise person said to me recently that of course, less than two years after his sudden passing is still very early days, when you consider the length of our time with him. He and Mum were married 44 years, and I have been alive for nearly 33. She is right – the time he’s been gone is a drop in the ocean compared to the time he was here with us, and I don’t think our hearts truly understand yet that he is gone from this world.

Most people are understanding, and while we try to keep the depths of our grief from showing even to family and friends, their support means the world.

Yet not everyone is kind, even when reminded we are grieving. Of course everyone has their crosses to bear, their own tragedies and losses and difficulties- it’s part of being human.

But this last couple of years have definitely shown me people’s true colours. I guess Dad was right, in a roundabout way, when he told me death really does bring out the best and worst in people.

Today was quiet and private – just Mum and I and the gentleman from the crematorium office. It was hard to do but felt peaceful, too – and I love that he has a permanent memorial there.

He is remembered and missed elsewhere too – my lovely auntie Kate sent us a photo of the wreath of yellow roses she’s put on his other memorial for Christmas, on his Mum’s grave in Cornwall, and we shall go to his pub and have a drink for him there too – because it’s always five o clock somewhere!

He is always with us – around us in spirit, alive in our hearts and minds and memories.

I am blessed to be his daughter and Mum’s. But goodness, I miss him.

Bicycles and burlesque

I’ve been in a real funk for what feels like ages now, and while I know some of this is because tomorrow marks six months since we lost Dad, which is normal and natural, some of it is more inexplicable and just annoying.

I’ve struggled to create, to sleep, and especially to do the everyday things that have to be done – laundry, cooking, day job tasks, ongoing business tasks, blogging…

It’s always a warning sign for me when I can’t find my blogging mojo – for most of my adult life I’ve had a blog, so any time when I don’t want to post for an extended period usually means I should take a long hard look at what’s happening, and maybe talk it out somewhere. (Ironically, not necessarily online…)

Last week, I felt like this and just didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything, but managed to force myself out of the house, into the car, and across town to burlesque.

Carla in Harry Potter/Night Circus burlesque gear | carlalouise.com

If you’re a long term reader, you’ll know that I’ve always danced, and that burlesque has been a passion for nearly six years now. My lovely friend Lizzie now co-owns Love You Burlesque, and alongside shooting them for a year (over at my business & branding photography biz), I dance with them too.

Lizzie and Gennie often talk about how their classes give ladies an hour to themselves every week, and I never really understood how important this was… I live on my own, so I spend a lot of time happily by myself! But that evening, I managed to leave behind all my sadness, anxiety, stress and general meh-ness for a whole hour, and lose myself in frills and feathers and sass.

This week has been hard, because it’s approaching a significant anniversary that I don’t want to think about. But tomorrow is going to roll around all the same, and walking aimlessly from room to room, wondering what I came in for, is not going to help.

I skipped burlesque yesterday as I just wasn’t feeling myself, and today although I had a lovely lunch with friends and a surprisingly good day at the day job, I got home and felt… meh.

So I got out my bike, shooing away the spiders that were lurking. Dusted her down, pumped up her tyres and went for a short ride to quite literally blow the cobwebs (on her) away. It’s the first time I’ve ridden this year and it was a great reminder of connection.

Bluebell the bicycle | carlalouise.com

Riding a bike (or a horse) means you’re out in the open air, you can feel the wind rush past your face as you move, and you are closer to the road than you ever are in a car.

You can see the leaves and the birds, the conkers (when the hell did it get to be conker season already?!) and the marks on other people’s cars. You are going quicker than you would on foot, but slow enough to notice pretty shutters, colourful front doors and various things for sale from the front of people’s houses (I love village life).

I only went to the shop and back, and yet I have come home feeling freer, calmer, and much less angsty about everything. Luna and Clover got to be outside till just now, instead of me panicking and hauling them in early (they get very silly around dusk, I think it’s a cat thing), and I have written this post, blitzed my bullet journal and answered some customer enquiries instead of just wandering around aimlessly.

It appears that next time I feel rough, things beginning with “b” are helpful… bikes… burlesque… bullet journals…

What do you do when you have an attack of the meh?!

Sometimes, self care looks like…

going to the beach and watching the sea and getting a sense of perspective.

charlestown harbour | Carla Watkins Photography | carlalouise.com

And sometimes, it looks like setting a reminder on your phone to actually bloody well eat proper food before the evening arrives!

After the recent heat, a gorgeous day yesterday (including accidentally transforming friends into mermaids in my garden) and an increasing habit of eating dinner at 10pm, today I woke up and just felt rough all over.

Lovely Annastasia came round so we could do the Ink Drops tax return (not fun, but felt good once it was achieved) and talk about stuff we want to do with our little company (fun and inspiring), but we were so busy chatting that I forgot about lunch.

Then Clover did a hat-trick of throwing up so I went into cat-related anxiety tailspin (admittedly nowhere near as bad as I have been in the past, but I was definitely fretting). On good advice I kept kittens in and went back to bed for a couple of hours – only to be woken up by furious catfighting outside my living room window. Gah!

Fortunately my two weren’t involved in that, and as they have managed to keep food down since, they are currently roaming the garden and having staring contests with pigeons and snoozing on the decking – it’s tough, being a pampered cat.

But it was only once I put dinner in the oven at almost 6pm that I realised I hadn’t eaten anything except some popcorn since breakfast, and breakfast was just a ciabatta roll because I wasn’t that hungry when I woke up.

No wonder I felt odd, and found routine things like cat puke overwhelming to deal with!

I am off to eat dinner now… and I think I shall put the laptop off and shut the studio until after I’m back from the vet tomorrow lunchtime. Could do with keeping the cats in, and it won’t hurt me to have a morning off like a normal person!

But this isn’t the first time recently I’ve forgotten to eat and then felt physically as well as mentally dreadful, so that is a lesson learned. During grief, but also in life generally, remember to eat proper food!

June check in

Just checking in – I really miss blogging like I used to, as more of a journal of my life. Over the 12 and a half years I’ve been writing about my life on the internet, I’ve seen blogging change and evolve and shapeshift so many times.

I haven’t quite worked out where it is, as a medium, today – some people say it’s dead, some people say it’s stripped back to its bare bones, some sit in the middle.

But for me, and I’m sure I’ve talked about this here before, my blog is my online living room. It’s decorated how I like it, it’s filled with the things and conversations I want to have, and people can visit and leave as they like. No scheduling, no shoulds, no worrying.

It’s probably not a strategy to build an enormous following, but that was never the goal for this particular blog. And I have plenty of business spaces to do the strategic-yet-authentic thing (though if I’m honest, even my businesses don’t have much of a schedule for blogging & social. I prefer to be present and write when I have something to say).

So, things that have been going on in my (still grief-fuddled) world recently:

This amazing box to brighten up my day job desk

hogwarts broomstick repair kit box | carlalouise.com

Friendiversary dinners & plans – from a year to 20 years, eeek!

Choosing a yellow rose to plant in Dad’s memory

A series of commercial shoots coming up for the Burlesque Jems (and I’m going to be on TV dancing with them – eee!)

Packing for holiday and wondering how the hell I’m going to get my biggest fin, two weeks’ worth of clothes plus my camera, lenses & laptop into hand luggage only

Mermaid filming, and some secret squirrel plans for Mermaiding UK’s blog

Celebrating my Gran’s 88th birthday (we missed Dad being a BBQ maestro but it was really lovely to spend a whole day just chilling out with family)

Gran's 88th birthday | carlalouise.com

Gran's 88th birthday | carlalouise.com

Happy lunching with friends at work

I was on BBC radio talking about being a mermaid!

mermaid on the radio | carlalouise.com

Ink Drops packing, podcasts and plans

Moving Crafty Coffee to a Wednesday, to fit in with my new part time hours

Planning for a creative day with friends

Julia and Willoughby came to stay for the long weekend and I had my first foray into toddler soft play – was hilarious! At sixteen months he is gorgeous and much more interactive than newborn babies… but I had forgotten how much energy kids have!!

Going back to burlesque classes – I had missed it SO MUCH

Jenny & Matt’s wedding (and unicorn shoes, and sneaking in brunch with Lou & Paul!) It was also… illuminating… to meet up with people I’d not seen for nearly a decade. I’m very entertained by how some of them still think of me, and also by the passage of time in the case of the boys – the teenage boys I was friends with and loved so much – they are all now hurtling for middle age, yet haven’t changed personality-wise at all.

me with the blushing (erm...) bride Jenny | carlalouise.com

the gorgeous bride Jenny and groom Matt | carlalouise.com

And I’m sure all sorts of other stuff which has escaped my brain for now.

I can’t quite believe it’s June, but I’m trying to keep up my Happy Jar and gratitude journal practices, and making an effort to cook & eat well, as grief is quite exhausting enough without also trying to survive on junk food.

I’m still sadder than I knew was possible, but I am getting through each day, and spending as much time as I can with Mum and my family and my kittens and my friends – these things do make you realise the important things in life.

And finally, I’m hoping to spend a bit more quality time with my camera over the next couple of months, around all the admin we have to do, and also of course around work. I read somewhere that immersing yourself in things you love helps with anxiety, as you’re too absorbed in your creativity to worry unnecessarily about things. I think maybe this is a good experiment to try…

 

Three months (and the importance of sleep)

On Thursday it will be three months since I lost my beloved Dad. I can’t believe it’s been such a long/short time without him – I know it’s still early days in terms of grieving and learning to live without him, but at the same time it feels like I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes since we lost him. Zombie-like ones, admittedly – I still have no idea what I’m doing or where I’m going most of the time, and I am doing the day to day stuff on autopilot.

Mum and I have been doing the best we can to get up every day and deal with life without him, to try to get all the admin done (it is a never ending wave – as soon as we complete one thing, four more turn up and need doing), and to comfort each other as much as we can.

For his two month anniversary we went to Arger Fen, to see the bluebells – he and Mum had done this last year and loved it. It was peaceful and quiet, and lovely to walk together and be in nature and remember him, and also to feel that he was there with us too.

Mum and I at Arger Fen for the bluebells, Dad's 2 month anniversary | carlalouise.com

Someone asked me if I have good days and bad days – I’d say I have days, and bad days. There have been some lovely things in the wake of his death, people being so kind and opportunities to spend time with Mum, extended family and dear friends. There was even something as lovely, and as normal, and as life-affirming, as Jenny and Matt’s wedding.

But oh, how I miss him.

I have managed to negotiate a year of part time at work – which technically started yesterday, though they are still bashing out the details after having approved it temporarily for a month. This is a relief as I was able to spend the day with Mum, and get lots done (if not as much as we’d hoped). We were both exhausted by the end of the day, and I stayed a bit later than planned so we could have some dinner and relax a bit.

But when I arrived home, congratulating myself on my newfound calmness about the kittens despite being home late, I let them out for a few minutes, and when they came back in for dinner, Clover was leaving little bloody marks on the floor wherever she put her right paw down.

Because I am exhausted to my bones, because I am already tired and had used up all my decision making ability and sensibleness and adulting on the awful but necessary business of Dad’s estate administration in the day, because I am still so sad I cannot conceive of normal life, because the combination of sad and exhausted means I’m not well and I’m not sleeping properly and I struggle with everyday decisions right now, this relatively small incident completely undid me.

Poor Clover – I inspected her paw as best I could, thought there was a claw missing, but had seen her pee moments earlier, and all her other claws & paws were intact. So not trauma from vehicle impact. She proceeded to eat both biscuits and wet food, at which point I rang Mum and with her help made the snap decision to give Clover some of the Metacam I had left in my cupboard from a trip to the vet in May.

Figuring it wouldn’t hurt and might help, I caught her, dosed her and then let her get on with her evening while I got in the bath and cried and cried and cried.

I know that things will hit me at odd moments, and crying over my (probably perfectly ok) cat might seem odd when I’ve just lost Dad, though I love those two kitties of mine to absolute distraction – but I wasn’t just crying over Clover, it was everything – the loss of him, the realisation (again) that he isn’t coming back, the grief, the having to carry on with every day when I really just want to curl up and hide from the world, the responsibility for two little cats who I love more than almost anything else in the world, but who seem to damage themselves far more often than is reasonable…

When I had picked myself up and taken myself to bed, via a long phone call with Lou, a shorter one with Mum and some panicked texts to my fellow cat ladies for reassurance, I established Clover was absolutely not in need of the emergency vet, and went to sleep.

This morning I feel, not exactly better, but certainly better than I did last night. Clover, when I left this morning, was purring, eating, cuddling, seemed 100% fine and there was no sign of blood. And the “missing” claw is intact – damn all that fluff in the way! Am mystified as to what’s happened, but I am hopeful that when I get home tonight she will still be fine, and I can have another early night. In the meantime, I am trying to be as gentle with myself as I am with other people, while simultaneously not taking any shit from anyone.

clover | carlalouise.com

What I have learned from this incident is that I must look after myself and I must prioritise sleep over more or less everything else. If I am well rested, the anxiety is better, the decision making is easier, everything is slightly better than it otherwise would be, and I’m less likely to get overwhelmed by everything.

I can’t go round the grief, or past it, or over or under it – I have to go through it and so does Mum. And all I can do while we go through it is remember to be kind to myself, and not feel guilty if I need more sleep than usual, or can’t socialise as much as I normally would, and so on.

On Thursday it will have been three months. If I can survive that, however broken from the impact of losing him, I can probably survive just about anything…

Love, loss and grief

There’s still no easy way to say this, so here it is: on 8th March 2017, my beloved Dad passed away, with Mum and I by his side right to the very end.

It was a gentle, peaceful step over after a few traumatic days in hospital, and I will always be thankful that we were able to be with him – for his sake, and also for ours.

In the six and a half weeks since, I have learned things.

That grief is not linear.

That it is possible to be more devastated than you ever imagined, and somehow keep going day after day after day.

That losing someone you love is a physical, as well as an emotional, pain.

That six and a half weeks can feel like five minutes and several lifetimes simultaneously.

Chris and Carla in Luckenbach, Texas | carlalouise.com

In Luckenbach, Texas. March 2015

Writing and taking pictures have always previously been my saviour when bad things have happened, but this loss is too big to process.

I don’t know how to be me without Dad in my life. He has always been there, and has always been on my side. He and Mum and I have always been Team Watkins – and our trio is now two, and neither of us really know how to process that.

Though I am so thankful for Mum – she is also devastated, but in our grief we are at least together. And she understands more than anyone else does, which makes days spent with her easier than days spent anywhere else.

My Dad was rather special in lots of ways. I know I’m biased, but even with that. It’s impossible to get his whole life into a blog post, but over his 72 years on the planet, 45 with Mum and 31 with me, he packed in enough life experience as the next ten people you’re likely to meet.

I heard stories at his wake that I had never heard, and I have never been anywhere, not even at weddings, where so much love for one person suffused a place and imbued every tear, every laugh and every word with such joy for having known him.

Mum and I put everything we could into his funeral – though I had definite WTF moments and moments of not wanting to do it – not because I didn’t want to do the best for him, but for the simple fact that I didn’t and don’t want him to be dead.

We had an amazing celebrant, Roxanne, who helped us to capture his spirit in words (he would definitely have approved – words and stories were his thing), and a wonderful funeral director, Maxine, from Hunnaball. I think he’d have approved of that, too!

His coffin had our flowers and also our Cornish flag, his Stetson hat and a helicopter on it – it was perfectly Chris.

Flowers and mementoes at Dad's cremation | carlalouise.com

It was a sad but also wonderful send off – very personal, and very fitting for the amazing human that he was. And the wake was (to my surprise) joyful from start to finish. The pub we chose was packed out with people reminiscing, and looking at the photo boards we had put together, and celebrating his life and that we knew him.

I feel so many feelings at the moment, I’m exhausted just from feeling them. I’m told this is quite normal in the early stages of grief. First time I’ve ever felt normal and I don’t like it much!

Something I keep returning to is how lucky I am (relatively speaking, in the sense that we all have to pass on one day – clearly I would have preferred it not to be just yet in Dad’s case) to have been able to stay with him in hospital. How privileged Mum and I were to have 24 hours of peace with him at the end, where he was with us but sleeping, pain-free and calm. Those hours by his bedside were so precious, to be able to say everything we wanted to, to cry, to laugh remembering things we’ve done together, to read him messages from the many, many family and friends who wanted to say goodbye.

To wake up in the same room as him & Mum on the morning he died, incongruously giggly, because he was snoring and Mum was snoring, and I remember many a childhood holiday morning listening to them snore away merrily.

That little side room off the cardiac unit might have been a hospital room, but it was home in the truest sense of the word – it was bursting at the seams with love and the three of us, the most important people in each other’s lives, were there together, helping each other through the trauma of parting.

To sit with him right at the end, as he made his final journey and the step over to the big bar in the sky, as he always called it and I will forever think of it. To see with my own eyes that it was peaceful, and know that the two people who loved him most, and who he loved most, were with him right until the end.

To be able to tell him that I love him, will always love him, and am so proud to be his daughter – these things had been said frequently during our life, but it was still a privilege to be able to  tell him again, to know that he knew without a shadow of a doubt just how special he is to us.

To have been inspired by his courage and fortitude when the consultant told him he was dying – to have loved and been loved so much that his loss has sliced through the core of my being and Mum’s.

All of those things make me lucky despite losing him, and so immensely proud – and he always told me that grief is the price we pay for love. It feels like a price worth paying, to have had him in my life.

I was terrified of coming home that night. We went to Gran’s once we left the hospital, and  then eventually back to Mum & Dad’s, and then Mum very bravely sent me home to my kittens. She was right, in that if I’d stayed with her that night I may never have left, but I was so scared, and so emotionally done for I didn’t know how I’d react to being at home.

His spirit was everywhere at their house – his chair by the window, his cigarettes, his desk and his computer, his coat over his office chair. All the tiny things that you don’t even notice till someone has gone. But it felt very much like he had come home with us, and it was somehow less painful.

I walked through the door of my house, and sat on the floor and cried.

Because he is here, too. He built this house for me – we have spent the last 18 months on the project and he put my last shelves up in January this year. It was his last great legacy, and he is everywhere.

In the banisters that we waxed together, in the furniture that he built, in the garden he designed and the garage studio he insisted on converting in November, even though I was happy to leave that another year or so.

In the beautiful fence panels in the garden, the bar he and Mum bought me as a housewarming present, the much-loved BBQ he taught me to cook on when I was small, and which is now in pride of place in my garden.

He’s in my books and my technology, my sentimental jewellery and my beautiful kitchen. In my scotchguarded carpet and my curtain rails, and my decking we planned to turn into a pirate ship.

My whole home is a monument to his love for me – something I hadn’t fully appreciated until that evening.

Me and Mum and Dad at C2C, March 2016 | carlalouise.com

Me and Mum and Dad at C2C, March 2016 | carlalouise.com

He is physically gone, but he is very much still with us. There have been little signs – blackbirds and helicopters, a book I picked up by chance which had too many spooky similarities to be anything but a sign.

All sorts of things, but most of all just a general feeling that he is there, still. Just beyond sight, beyond that veil – but there, nonetheless. Keeping Mum and I safe as he has done all his life.

We are coping, day by day. I have survived this far with incredible family and friends, copious kitten cuddles, and the strategy of taking ten minutes at a time.

I miss him more than I thought possible, and there is a huge, gaping hole where he used to be. Nothing is ever going to fill that, but I hope in time I will get used to living with it.

We have so many happy memories – our travels and road trips stand out (especially the Alan Jackson trip in 2015 – a true once in a lifetime memory), but even our day to day life is a happy memory.

Fate works in mysterious ways, too – after being made redundant and then deciding against a job in the Gulf in 2008, I decided to stay in Essex and moved to Colchester where my parents followed me a couple of years later.

Geography means I have been able to pop in to them, and them to me, for all of that time – and when I bought my house, they were able to project manage the build for me without having to stay away from their own home. Which also led to lots of sundowners in the garden, and BBQ dinners when I got home from work. Mundane at the time, so very precious with hindsight.

I’ve stayed more or less single throughout my twenties & into my thirties – and while I’ve had various opinions about that during that time, I’m now more grateful than ever that I made that choice. I made it for my own happiness, but a side effect I hadn’t even considered is that I have had time and freedom to spend with Mum and Dad regularly. I see them most weeks unless I’m away, sometimes several times a week, and while the house project was in progress I saw them most days. That time, now, feels like a gift.

And so. Somehow or other, Mum and I have to learn to live without Dad. Or at least, without his physical presence.

It is the small things which are the hardest – when the cars play up, or the oven breaks – all the little things he would fix without batting an eyelid.

I hung all my pictures in my house over the Easter weekend – I think he’d be very proud, despite the fact that I will be needing blue tac to make sure they all stay hanging straight…!

The blog will, I suspect, be a big part of my recovery. I’ve missed it, but I wanted to post this before I resumed normal posts, and it is still so raw and I’ve found it very difficult to write. I’m sure more about Dad will find its way onto the blog as I remember it, discover it or rediscover it – but for now, I am going to post this, and then take away all “shoulds” and allow myself to blog, or not, as I feel like it.

If you’ve read this far, thank you. If you are one of the incredible humans who has been there for me and with me during this time, thank you even more. I am told that one day I will feel like myself again. Until then, I’ll just take ten minutes at a time.

In memory of truly the best Dad a girl could ever wish for. I’ll try always to make you proud.

Chris Watkins

22 August 1944 – 8 March 2017

Dad and me on my 30th birthday | carlalouise.com

Dad’s chosen charity for donations in his memory is Devon Air Ambulance, with whom he worked for many years. If you’d like to donate, you can do so here: http://christopher.watkins.muchloved.com/

How self portraits healed my grief

2007 and 2008 show up in my archives as self portrait upon self portrait upon self portrait.

In a time before the word “selfie” existed, and when Facebook was only a year or two old, it was less about exhibitionism and more about discovering myself and improving my skills as a photographer at the same time.

Following the break up of a seven year relationship with my childhood sweetheart at the end of 2007, I had no idea how to deal with it and quickly retreated into my own little world with my camera to try and make sense of my grief. While driving my friends and family to distraction with my circular thoughts and endless tears, I took photo after photo after photo, both posed and candid.

I started a 365 project which can be seen here, though not all the images are publicly visible – they’re mainly snapshots but having a zero-faff daily project helped so much:


Created with flickr slideshow.

 

They can also be seen here on my Flickr account if the slideshow is playing silly buggers (internet explorer, I’m looking at you…)

The daily ritual of remembering to take and upload my photo, of finding new ways to see myself, to pose, places to be – they helped me see myself as a whole person, not the half of a couple I had always been. I learned how to be me, how to be by myself and how to be happy alone… crucial lessons for rebuilding my current happier, brighter, colourful life.

In essence I suppose photographed my way around my broken heart, fixing the break with pixels and colour and light. The thing I’d adopted as one of my many interests and developed as a skill ultimately helped me find myself again, deal with the pain, shed my old self and move on with my life.

Looking back at those photos I took, I can see (because hindsight is magic, but also because I have changed so, so much in that time) the girl I was and the woman I am. I can see the pain I was in and my desperate hope that it would somehow turn out to be a bad dream, but I can also see my true personality peeking out, though at the time I didn’t notice it. And it’s like getting to know a little sister after a long absence… it’s bittersweet to see her ups and downs and I wish I could tell her it would all be ok. More than ok – it’ll be rather wonderful a few years down the line!

And as the catalyst for a curious life – well, seven years later I’m still photographing my way through this world, and learning daily from it.

I’m thinking of doing another series soon – drop me a note if you’d like to join me!