It’s the weekend!! Welcome to week 6 of the 52-week creative growth challenge. I originally was going to do portraits, but my husband was in need of some headshots, so, we improvised. We are going to dive into the past, to when the hubbs and I were dating.
Once upon a time, early in the relationship, I had a little cocker spaniel that has since went to live with my son. His name was Jax. He had the cutest face with a little heart shaped freckle on his nose. He was brown and white, with green eyes. I was enamored with this dog. When my future husband, Brett came over to my house for the first time, my sweet little Jax would NOT let him through the door. He growled and barked at the immediate threat of losing all of his momma’s attention. Eventually, he made friends with this gentleman suitor, and was literally eating out of his hand. You see, my husband is a beast whisperer.
Brett knew what he was doing, as the way to my heart was definitely through my animals. One date night, we were at my house, and Brett wanted to play the guitar for me… (obviously another ploy for my heart), and we hopped in his car to head towards his house to grab the guitar, and he invited sweet Jax to go with us. We piled in his car, Jax in my lap and off we go!
I was swooning at this point over the fact that he invited my sweet Jax, and he was planning on serenading me with his guitar playing. As we were heading over to his house, I felt a familiar twinge… a migraine was coming on. I sat there as the pain intensified on the ride to his house. I did NOT want this migraine to ruin our evening, so I tried to mind over matter it. I tried pretending that it was not happening. Positive thinking can be powerful, right? It did not work. We got to his house and my little cocker spaniel hopped out and waltzed right into the house as if he owned the joint… leaving a little surprise on the floor to let others know that he was there. My head was pounding but I was forcing smiles and trying so hard not to show any sign of pain. By this time the sensitivity to light was kicking in.
Brett grabbed his guitar while I cleaned up Jax’s mess, and we hopped back into his car to head back to my house. It took about 15 minutes to get to my house, and so I felt that I could make it back to the house and would be able to relax and everything would be just fine. It was dark and as we passed streetlights the pain in my head intensified to the point where I became nauseous. What was only 15 minutes seemed like an eternity. We were only about a mile away, so I was trying so hard to breathe through the pain and the nausea. As we turned onto my street, Brett looked at me and asked if I was ok. As I tried to tell him to stop… I projectile vomited all over the passenger front side of his car.
He asked me what was wrong, and I told him… I’ve had a migraine all evening, but I didn’t want to ruin it. I started helping him clean the car. We did the best we could, and in the morning, I went and purchased a small carpet shampooer and spent the next day deep cleaning the interior of his car. I bought a little card, with a note inside telling him I was sorry I puked in his car and gave him a little gift… a guitar air freshener. I thought once I finished cleaning his car, that I probably wouldn’t hear from him again. Do you know what happened? He came back… again.. and again (obviously since he’s my husband now lol)
You see, if someone loves and cares for you, you will be able to be your authentic self. You will be able to be human without detouring them. They won’t flinch when you aren’t perfect. They won’t send you mixed signals. They will accept you flaws and all. So, don’t accept anything less than someone you can completely be yourself around and that inspires you to be the best version of yourself.
My husband still has that guitar air freshener hanging from his rear view mirror.
Next week, I’d love to share the reason we have an inside joke about pirates… and I’d love to do an ACTUAL portrait, so join me for week 7. Comment below if you’d like to share a story or let me know if you want to join my Facebook photography challenge group.
