This is the year I said ‘goodbye’. Goodbye to feeling as though I failed. Goodbye to mourning not living up to societal norms. Goodbye to pain and anguish over something that no longer lives. As an American woman you learn from a young age to grow up, marry and make babies. The traditions of our past living out in the advice of our parents, loved ones, those who bought into the lie and want your company. Please do not get me wrong. Many of you are happily married, raising beautiful babies of your own and for that I applaud you for it isn’t the path for me and never had been. There was a time I wanted it to be, to be like everyone I see around me with families and happy lives but somewhere within me I knew I could never be what a child needed of a mother and a piece of me still mourns that sometimes. But that was never enough to change my mind. I watch people marry now and ask for blessings that they can walk the path I felt so unable to. And for the last 3 years I’ve mourned the death of my marriage as a failure that I could never make whole. The truth is what saddens me is when others feel I should marry again, that this will make things right. It’s that thinking, that external pressure that made me want to marry in the first place. Shouldn’t you want to marry because you feel called to do so? Not because it will make those around you happy. And I did think I wanted to be married, in truth I just didn’t want to be alone. So this is my celebration, the end of my mourning and a new beginning in a world full of possibilities. Marry if you feel called to marry the one you love. Raise babies if that desire lives within you. And say goodbye to living in the past, embrace whatever lies before you and don’t live for other people because in the end you only get the one chance. . . #infinitecolorpanel #fineart #dark #darkphotography #darkart #artist #fear #portraitphotography #creative #darkbeauty #surrealphotography #lovethyself #art #createwithoutfear #infinitetools #infiniteradiance #thecolorlab #dronephotography #droneselfportrait #drone #dronestagram #droneoftheday #droneart #mavicpro #goodbye #wedding #marriage #fall