Tidbits: lights, camera... stillness

Practicing my new camera skills.. focusing on my tree lights, learning camera settings and appreciating the stillness a tripod brings. After making all the settings I know I couldn't have stayed motionless during the looooonnnggggg shutter release!

And I am beeeeeehind on reverb posts but will do my best to catch up. I really am enjoying the process and the prompts are very thought provoking. Here is day 8:

Author: Karen Walrond
The Beauty of Different
@chookooloonks

Prompt: Beautifully different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different - you'll find they're what make you beautiful.

Wow.. I have to say this is the hardest. The earlier prompt that I hesitated on wasn't hard to answer just hard to answer publicly, this one is just difficult. I have never felt beautiful, inside or out. I'm not by any means fishing for a compliment, nor do I think I'm ugly. I think I am me, whatever that is and isn't. It isn't beautiful in the terms of being on the cover of a magazine or making heads turn when I walk in a room. I can name a million things I don't like about myself, like every other insecure girl. I don't like my weight, I don't like my smile, I don't like my hands either. But I am not self-loathing. I have many fine qualities that make me unique and different.

I have a birth mark on my cheek. Though it's nearly faded with time, it was once strongly pronounced. I have horrible vision that is now corrected by contacts, though in grade school.. it was very thick glasses. I have great teeth, never had braces. As a youth, I had a horrible gap between my front teeth that my molars eventually pushed together.

Back then, I didn't completely appreciate the fact I was an awkward child. However, funny spots, geeky glasses, gappy teeth, among many other terrible things I wont go into, brought me an understanding that life has curve balls. It made me appreciate that I was smart, had great friends, a loving family and a stable home. Again, these aren't things I realized then, but I do now. I know that in nearly ever moment of my life I am thinking of someone else. I put my kids first, I put my husband first, my friends.

I will go without if it means a smile from someone else. I try to think of how my actions affect others and adjust my choices by that thought. I am not a pushover, I do not neglect myself. I am well aware of the dangers of never taking care of your own needs. I am rational, I can see my own flaws. I try to find out the "why" in a situation instead of just reacting to the symptom. Don't confuse my indecision with 'waffling', I just too often can understand every side of the argument. I believe in compromising and settling. I know I have a purpose and I have many dreams.

Maybe none of this makes me unique or maybe it all does. This whole line of thought has reminded me of my favorite line of a book I read as a teen. It's called "I Make My Own Rules" by LL Cool J.