Independence & Thankfulness

We often take for granted all the simple freedoms.

Like playing in the creek on a hot summer day.

No worries.

Burgers on the grill.

The water is slightly cold, but feels good.

Nature’s hum.

Freedom rings.

Happy Independence Day! 🇺🇸

I don’t have the time

I want to feel angry.

I want to.

But I don’t have the time,

I don’t have the mental capacity,

I don’t have the sanity,

I don’t have the self-control to

bring myself back in

once I start down that path.

It’s not something I can prioritize

anymore.

It no longer consumes me.

I push it to the back burner

because I have to.

I know I could feel better

if I let those emotions come

over me,

if I’d just let them go.

But I’ve got people

depending on me now,

that I didn’t have before.

Because my daughter is

watching me with a careful eye

and I don’t want the only

vision of a strong woman she sees

to be the one she sees on a screen.

Before, I could let

the emotions consume me.

I could fall apart and

nobody would know.

Before, I could hold the anger

until I was ready to release it.

I could reel myself in.

I could take my time sorting out

my feelings and

making sense of emotions.

But now?

It’s all different now.

I don’t have the time.

Five Word Poem of the Day

The humid Illinois air thickens

Five Word Poem of the Day

Hours become minutes when bored

Five Word Poem of the Day

Mondays are like wet socks

Seedlings

It’s so weird to think

that just a few months ago

this beautiful plant

was just a tiny seed.

It was hiding dormant

in a shell,

but then it emerged

and now it lives.

Growing, reaching

for the sun.

Reacting to stress and

its environment,

breathing

surviving

thriving.

What was once a seedling,

is now just trying to live.

I relate to the cycle.

Life is flourishing

all around us.

This is a jalapeño plant we’ve been growing this year. We’re new to gardening, but hoping to grow more every year!

This fresh sweet mint is going to be amazing! Super excited for this beautiful plant!

Five Word Poem of the Day

The summer crept in fiercely

Five Word Poem of the Day

Endings are only fresh beginnings

Site revamp!

Good morning and Happy Wednesday!

This week is a little different for me. I’m not doing my usual 9-5 job, so I have a little more time to spend on WP. I spent this morning giving my site a new look, so feel free to check out my home page and let me know what you think! I don’t usually change much on my actual site since WP can be difficult to figure out on that end. If you have any tips or advice, drop me a comment – I’d love to know more!

I’ve included a new tab specifically for my poetry and another one specifically for my photography. Be looking out for more posts in those realms, as summer is a super inspiring time of the year!

Have a great rest of the week and Happy Hump Day!!!

Welcome to Between the Lens…

I’ve gained quite a new following since I’ve introduced myself to my readers, so I figured I’d go ahead and reach out to some of you that have recently started following my page… This post is for you!

First off, thanks for following! I’ve been posting on this blog since February of 2018. I haven’t always been consistent on when I post new content, but I don’t like to force my writing or write about things that I don’t take an interest in. So I may go offline for a bit, but I’ll always return. I’m constantly looking for inspiration out in the world, and when I find it, I always make my way back to put it into words.

What kind of content do you share?

I use WordPress as a journal, of sorts. Sometimes I vent about life’s mishaps and sometimes I write abstract about nothing in particular. I have a broad life view and I like to use words in an experimental and creative way.

When I was a young girl, my sister and I were taken from the custody of our mother, and taken to live with our five cousins, aunt, and uncle. I was raised alongside my cousins in a big, blended family. I like to write about my experiences of trauma, heartache, and growth throughout this period of my life, so you’ll also find many posts speaking about addiction and its impact on my family, motivation tips to move past family hindrance, and how that time in my life changed who I am today. I also talk a lot about reflection – something that I do a lot. I believe it’s vital to becoming the person you think that you truly are. Because a lot of the time, you may not be the person that you’d like to be, or even that you thought you were. Honest and deep reflection into yourself and the relationships that you have with others is important for growth.

I’ve always been a lover of words. When I was a young girl, I spent a lot of time with my grandma. She was (still is!) the best because she filled our lives with the love of drawing, writing, painting, and creative play. She would sit back and let us express ourselves in a way that we chose. I’d ask her for a notebook and she would head to her bedroom and pull out a tote that would be FULL of new, clean notebooks, new markers, colored pencils, drawing books, canvases, paints, anything you could think of. I’d sit at her dining room table for hours writing, drawing, and painting. She still has the notebooks from my childhood and she can still pull them out to this day (She is going to be 97 years old next month).

I like to write poems and abstract pieces that flow the way I want them to. The great thing about language, is that there is an endless amount of creativity that you can inject into it. The words can flow however you like them to, because, like a painting, you are the artist and you have your own style and flow you prefer.

I also have always loved research and learning new things, so I often also write up articles sharing interesting information that I’ve found. Most of these kinds of articles are linked to further information you can look into on your own if you share the same interest as I do.

I’m also a mother and am pregnant with another one – due in October around Halloween. So I also like to write about my kids and our experiences. I like to write a lot about pregnancy, motherhood, and parenting – it’s one of those difficult but rewarding experiences that are fun to write about.