003: flexibility is not betrayal

Self portrait, July 2025

This year has included some of the most creatively fulfilling months I’ve ever had. And some of the greatest challenges to my creative output, too. There are many factors at play here. It’s easy (and necessary) to question the role of your art in the Current Political Moment. The enduring cruelty of the world is aimed to keep us in survival mode, and the perpetrators of that cruelty are very invested in quelling our spirit. It’s hard to schedule a collaborative shoot when the air is thick with humidity, unease, and fear.  

In addition to the existential and political, I’m dealing with physical issues too. As I write this, I am recovering from my second surgery this year, the first one being a major operation in the winter. It saved my life, but it also changed my life, and a lot of those changes aren’t as temporary as I hoped they would be. I was mentally prepared for physical pain and discomfort. I reluctantly accepted that I would be less independent for a while. I came to terms with the fact that my body would change in a big way. What I wasn’t expecting was an enduring level of fatigue that hasn’t changed much in seven months.

I have ignored my body’s needs for most of my adult life, usually for two reasons: work, or appeasing others. This time, my body won’t let me. 

The narrative in my head is this: The plan is the plan is the plan. You can't compromise on your vision - the results won’t be good enough. Asking for an extension will make you look bad. If you cancel plans, they’ll be upset with you. You should be able to do this. Why can’t this person work on my timeline? They should do what they said they would do. This shouldn’t be so hard.

My surgery and recovery forced me to slow down, and I knew my body had been begging for a change for some time. A lot of us let go of 2010s hustle culture and “sleep when you’re dead” attitudes during Covid lockdown but May 2020 was when I took the plunge into full time freelance. Now after five years of non-stop movement, it feels unnatural to slow down.

“The body wants to heal,” my friend Peter kept reminding me. Yeah, sure – could it heal a little faster? I have three sets to edit this week. I need to stay awake long enough to get these done. “The body wants to heal. We just have to stand by and let it.”  That’s nice and all, but this person I know was back to work three weeks after her surgery, and this isn’t going fast enough. Fast enough for who? For a parentified eldest daughter who keeps moving her own goalposts and beating herself up when she can’t catch up, naturally. 

Get well soon flowers, February 2025

Two months into recovery, and my energy hadn’t returned to pre-surgery levels. I felt that my body was betraying me. When I hit month four, then five, the resentment began to subside as I realized: I was the one betraying my body. Those two emotions, resentment and betrayal, had dominated my recovery. Physically, my inflexibility was sabotaging my healing and dragging out the process. Creatively, my rigidity was feeding a growing disdain for photography, and serious burnout. 

Flexibility always seemed like a compromise. I’ve always hated the idea of changing the plan - even when the plan was unrealistic from the start. A client has eight setups in mind but only three hours to shoot? I’ll make it work. Overcommitted to social plans? Can’t drop any, or you’ll be a disappointment. 

I’ve spent years showing up for everyone else but myself, which always resulted in total burnout. Once I regained energy and focus, I’d repeat the cycle. I was committed to being inflexible in almost every area of my life, and painfully hard on myself. It wasn’t working.

If you know that something isn’t working, you have an obligation to yourself to honor that gut feeling and investigate. It’s truly terrifying to get everything you’ve ever wanted, and then to start questioning it all. But that terrifying moment can be an opportunity to get to know yourself better. Chances are, you’ve grown in some ways. Your values have changed. 

Flexibility opens you to clarity. 

that’s the data, diva!

Recently, flexibility has allowed me to experience two big revelations that have scared me, and allowed me to better understand myself and what I want my life to look like. 

First, I’m an extrovert. I shared this with a friend on the phone, and quickly learned that this was not news to her as I was met with a few seconds of silence followed by, “um, yes? You didn’t know this?” 

No! I didn’t know this until a few weeks ago. My therapist stopped me in the middle of a story when I casually referred to myself as an introvert, and she asked why I saw myself this way. It took just a couple of minutes for me to realize that I had adopted the label in response to growing up in a strict household. By my youthful logic, pre-emptively labeling myself as an introvert would protect me from feeling hurt or disappointed when my parents said no - because I stopped asking all together. 

Aspiring to that word may have served me 25 years ago, but no longer. And the funny thing is, that commitment was in name only. My friend wasn’t surprised because I am a very social person. I enjoy the company of others with little effort. I really like meeting new people. Labeling myself as an introvert for all these years has made it so much harder to pursue or ask for what I need. I enjoy my own company, but more often than not, I feel recharged by spending time with people. Clinging to that label has caused me to lose out on friendships and experiences. Being inflexible prevented me from being curious about myself.

Second, I don’t always love being a full time freelance photographer. Lately, there have been more than a few times that I’ve hated it. When that happens, I quickly turn to my hit emotion: shame.This is what you’ve wanted your entire adult life, stop complaining, I tell myself. But this season of my freelance life isn’t quite what I had pictured. I haven’t reached the point where I only take jobs that feel creatively energizing and fulfilling. Some gigs are simply bill-paying gigs. I execute them very well., but they usually don’t end up on instagram. They take a lot of creative energy and time that I would rather be spending on my own projects, or more exciting concepts. I know this isn’t a unique situation or complaint. You should be grateful. This is just how it is, says the internal shame and judgement. Why aren’t you happy? 

This year I’ve met more photographers who have part or full time day jobs so that they can save their creative energy for their art. It feels terrifying and absurd to even consider looking for a day job. I’ve spent five years building up my business, and 2025 has been my most financially successful year yet. Yes, it’s nice to say that I am a full time photographer, and that my skills pays my bills. But what do the bragging rights matter if I’m not happy? I want to feel aligned and inspired by the majority of my work. I want to feel energized on set. I want to find myself deep in creative flow as many days as possible. 

Self portraits featuring a beloved neighborhood magnolia tree, July 2025.

I haven’t made any decisions about how to get to fulfillment. But I know that something here isn’t working, and I’m open to all options. I’m open to being braver by turning down work that doesn’t interest me, and trusting that the right projects will reveal themselves. I’m open to working a couple days a week at a bookstore, a restaurant, or another kind of social environment that gets me out of the house and around people. I could see myself ending up in a creative director or consultant position again, too. I’m open to anything that helps me achieve luminous joy when that camera is in my hands. 

A year ago, I wouldn’t have entertained this notion, let alone written about it publicly for peers and potential clients to see. I would have been too worried about people receiving this as admitting defeat or moving backwards, which is certainly not the case. This isn’t about moving in any specific direction. It’s about getting unstuck. It’s about being open to other outcomes in my work, my process, my life.

It’s stunning how much we can learn about ourselves when we stop letting rigid ideas and expectations run the show. You start to realize how many of those ideas have everything to do with someone else, and nothing to do with you. Someone told you that you should feel this way in your relationship. Someone else’s recovery took four weeks and not a day longer, so yours should be like that, too. Someone doubted you out of their own insecurity, and you said, “challenge accepted.” 

I often think about how many different lives I’ve lived before 35. Finding flexibility in adulthood has opened me up to so many versions of my future. And to so many versions of myself. Earlier this year I made a hard decision that would change my body but save my life. It was the right call for my health. The decision I made to be open was for my artistic practice and fulfillment. Now I’m ready to make art that I've been dreaming about for years. Extroverted, curious, and clear. 

Flexibility has opened me up to myself. I can’t wait to see what I’ll do next.