Random Inspiration #10 {old memories and what to do with ugly/plain/useless photos you take}

Sometimes I take pictures that turn out not that good, blurry or ugly or boring or plain looking, too dark, too bright, seemingly having no point…I usually have the urge to delete them.

But not so long ago, I got a better idea. 

I can “recycle” them in a way, I guess you can say. Get creative and fix them up and make them pretty or more interesting. 

I can do things with the pictures that will make them look good that would ruin other pictures.

Example:

Look at this terrible picture! Ack! I want to delete it right now! I meant for it to be a lovely view of the Philadelphia skyline at night but it sucks instead. No hope for it…

Unless!

Now it’s pretty, right?!

I think so! But even if you still think it’s just kind of useless or sucks, you still get the picture, right?

You can take a sucky photo and prettify (or creepify) it. Imagine if I took a beautiful picture and then put that heart on it like that? It would ruin it!

But this picture already sucks so the heart can’t ruin it! And you can still see part of the skyline and I think the heart makes it look even better.And the colors pop more The heart is the main thing now but then we catch a glimpse of the buildings and lights in the background! Perfect!

Or you can make a sucky picture look creepy, like with my pic of the door above. That was just a simple pic of a door I took that had no use (the pic had no use, not the door) so I put a weird creep effect on it!

I like this one. Sometimes I’m in the mood for making my pictures cheery and pretty and colorful while other occasions I want them seeming dark, nostalgic, hazy, blurry, creepy, sad-like, vintage, shadowy…
This one is on the dark side.

Heres’s the original :

And here’s another pic I made fantastic when it was just kind of blah originally:

Original:

I actually like this one too but can see how it’s kind of plain. It’s interesting though. It’s a University of Pennsylvania building. The campus is beautiful. This is the medical examiner’s office, where they do autopsies and examine corpses and stuff.

And here are some more pics of mine that weren’t that good and I fixed them up:

Lol the heater at work. I made it look like I was having some dance party with strobe lights. I only took the pic to test my phone because it wasn’t working correctly. I took the picture last year and just found it in my phone recently.

Library on Temple University campus. I used to go to school here. I took this pic a few nights ago as I was going by.
I love when I see the campus again. I don’t see it frequently and whenever I do so many emotions come flooding back to me.
Both happy and sad ones, feelings of longing and feelings of joy. Nostalgia and happiness and gratitude.
i embrace them all.
It’s so familiar yet so distant now. I know it so well, so intimately, yet I feel as if I would probably get lost walking on there again.
That is so strange to feel.
i am never quite prepared for the feelings I experience when seeing the campus again and reminiscing.
I loved walking all around the campus day or night. When I had breaks in the middle classes

sometimes I would walk around the same buildings over and over and over, loving every single second of it. I would explore the entire campus by myself. And I would get there early just to have breakfast and iced coffee and just to walk around campus in the early morning before class.
It’s there and then that I learned to love my own company. I was always afraid to do things, go places alone, not because of social anxiety but because of my depression and certain painful memories I have. I dreaded long breaks in the middle of classes and it hurt me to see girls alone drinking coffee or eating or reading, it stirred feelings of horror and despair in me because of certain of my own experiences but I took the chance, the risk, and embraced my physical aloneness and came to welcome it and love iit.

Sometimes I still get those old feelings and fear of aloneness but then I remember my strength I found on campus in college.

I loved those early mornings having coffee with just me, reading, walking, exploring.i found it healing and I love the memories now. I cherish them always. This was before my depression was as healed as it is now and that aloneness and embracing it helped heal me so much and instill more joy into me. I’m naturally extroverted, always wanting people around me and it was hard at first to learn to do things like this alone but I accomplished it! 😀

These are steps that lead to nowhere. They are in a neighborhood I used to live, one I lived in since I took my first breath until I turned eleven years old. It’s a small place where everyone knew each other. It’s often called the “ghetto” because it’s a very poor neighborhood and full of trash and falling down houses. And loud people, prostitutes, criminals, and people with drug problems. It wasn’t always as bad as it is now. It started to get worse and that’s why my mom and dad decided to move when I was eleven years old. People were getting murdered on the street corners where I played with my friends. One day I saw one of the murder victims after the homicide occurred.
A young woman who I still think of today. I never saw her before she died
That I know of. I don’t know who she is/was.
she had thick curly long hair and I remember it so vividly. I wonder who she would be if she were allowed to live.
I saw the whole thing, all the gore and all, I saw the emergency paramedics take her body away after covering her with the white sheet. I saw the gruesome aftermath, the things that no one cleaned and remained day after day until the rain washed it away.
She was killed on a man’s pavement and I wondered why he did not clean up his pavement after it occurred.
She was stabbed to death.
I knew it’s horrific but I was too young to completely understand.
i was sad to leave the neighborhood because I loved it there (not the violence and gore and all though)
i knew everyone, I had many friends there.
i never minded the loud people or the prostitutes on the corner.
One of them was even my friend when I saw her around.
she was sweet and friendly and I wondered why people talked about her In an unkind way.

i just saw her for her, not the unfortunate circumstances of her life.
I was very angry at my mom and dad for taking me away and moving me to a bigger place where I knew not as many people. I met a few friends I frequently saw but I still wanted my old ones and wanted to go back “home.”

i used to know a lady who lived on the street where those steps are. Her house is gone now but the broken steps remain.
she was very old, very sweet, very youthful and full of life. Very loving and warm.
She worked or volunteered at the elementary school I went to.
i remember when it was almost Christmas and I was in 4th grade and a little girl in class asked her if she thinks Santa Claus is real and she said “yes because who else brings all the toys?!” 😀

These are some of my darker pictures. The ones that don’t resonate with everyone. My mom and sister don’t care for them. Some pictures are universally pleasing like, most people would probably like them or agree that they are pleasant, pretty, uplifting…such as flowers, a bowl of fruit, cute animals, sunsets and sunrises, babies…and I love all those too. but there are certain kinds
of 
artistic things that only certain others will understand or appreciate like this stuff. I never used to like black & white or sepia pictures but now I love them. Only for certain things though, usually not for people or
Nature, definitely not for the sky usually. I think those things are meant to let their colors fly. But for buildings and things I like b&w and sepia as well as color.

This concept can be applied to many things. Some things are probably better off being tossed. But some things can be given new life, used in a different way. Old clothes, old mail, things which no longer serve their original purpose well can be creatively made into something else. Even ourselves! 

You can use useless mail for an arts and crafts project, clothes too.

This can probably be good for the environment too! Recycling is important!

And we can even rebuild ourselves into something new, grow, evolve, expand…

I wish you much love, happiness, health, joy, and creativity!

😀

Xoxo Kim

P.s. This post is not in good condition, like the format because I posted it directly onto the app on my phone instead of how I usually do. The app is not compatible with my phone for posting directly onto it, I can’t correct mistakes easily and other stuff. I did this like this because I got confused with the locations of the pictures in my phone and that part was easier to just use the app directly for. Most of my posts won’t be this much
Of
a wreck though. Lol ;-D toodleloo lolz

Born over & over. And over again.

“This girl is a woman now
She’s found out what it’s all about
And she’s learning learning learning to live…” ~ Gary Puckett & the Union Gap

“The wound is the place where the light enters you. ” ~ Rumi
“Surviving meant being born over and over.” ~ Erica Jong

Adversity can crush our spirit – or strengthen it – it is our choice.

Yeah, this post isn’t about reincarnation in the sense of the rebirth of a soul or spirit after biological death.  But it is about death and rebirth in a sense.  

This post is more directed at women but men and anyone who identifies as both/none can read and learn too!   The message is definitely not exclusive to women.  The book I’m reading is mostly geared towards women. But the lesson goes for anyone.

I’m reading Sarah Ban Breathnach ‘s “Something More – Excavating Your Authentic Self.”
I absolutely love her writing style.  It’s so warm and gentle but so strong and passionate.

In this book, in a section called, “Near-Life Experiences,” she writes 

“Every day we experience death.   The death of dreams, misconceptions, illusions. The death of vibrancy and enthusiasm. The death of hope. The death of courage. The death of confidence. The death of faith.   The death of trust.   More often than any of us ever expect, life stuns us with the sudden wrenching away of a loved one, a devastating diagnosis, a conversation that begins with the chilling words “There’s Something I’ve got to tell you.
We feel as if life is over, and we are right.  Life as we knew it is over.”

Sarah Ban Breathnach writes about when her marriage ended and when her health was threatened.  She writes

 “In each instance, when I regained consciousness months later, I was someone else.  I died to myself, and a stronger, wiser, and more passionate woman was resurrected in my place.  Although this woman answered to my name, she was profoundly different. “

This woman was in a serious accident, years ago,  in a fast -food restaurant with her toddler daughter when a large ceiling panel fell off and crashed into her.  She fell unconscious onto the table.   No one else was hurt.  She suffered a severe concussion, was bedridden, confused, and disoriented for months and disabled for a year and a half.   For a few months her senses did not function properly.   She had to stay in bed constantly in the dark because her injuries rendered her extremely sensitive to light.  She was inarticulate and couldn’t speak coherently.  She felt imprisoned in her own body, neither alive nor dead but having a “near -life experience.”  

She shares a quote by Eudora Welty, “the fantasies of dying could be no stranger than the fantasies of living.  Surviving is perhaps the strangest fantasy of them all.”

And here is, what I see, as the most beautiful part of Sarah Ban Breathnach’s story.

When she was bedridden in the dark she had nothing to do but tell herself stories in her head.   She writes this,

 “In order to get through this purgatory, I would lie in the dark and tell myself stories – discombobulated sagas, to be sure – as I wove in and out of wakefulness. Clara Pinkola Estes believes that ‘Stories are medicine.’   They certainly became my homeopathic remedies.   Although I had been a journalist for ten years, I had never thought of myself as a storyteller. But snatches of stories-fairy tales I’d heard as a child, adventures I’d lived as a young woman- would float to the top of my distress and hang in midair until I retrieved one and recast it as a personal parable.  Each starred my own romantic heroine, an extraordinary woman who triumphed over her travails with courage, grace, and grit – a person who bore no resemblance to me at all.    This woman was beautiful and radiant, with a strong, healthy, and vibrant aura.   Her eyes sparkled and she laughed uproariously . She was mysterious, magnetic, accomplished, powerful, irresistible, confident, smart, sassy, funny, and sexy.  She was passionate.   She possessed verve, but more important, she reflected, even in the worst situations, the essential characteristic of all romantic heroines – repose of the soul.   I couldn’t remember having an imaginary friend as a child, but now I did and I adored her company. 
I looked forward to my alter ego ‘s daily dose of diva-gation- her wandering, straying, but always pulling through with pluck to live and love again.”

After this ordeal was over, Sarah Ban Breathnach realized that this beautiful, passionate, strong woman in her waking dreams is in fact herself.  Her authentic self.
 The self she always knew deep, deep inside she can be.   The self she already was then but buried beneath layers of social demands and pressures, the stresses of everyday life, denial, feelings of unworthiness….She had to learn this and practice acknowledging it but eventually she came to know that she is a strong, wise woman of love, passion, and strength.   This woman and this wisdom were born of pain and horror but she was there all along waiting for the birth of herself. 

It’s true that every single day parts of us die so new parts can be born.  Even our skin and cells physically die and give way to new ones.

Death hurts. Not just the biological death of someone we love or the death of a relationship but even the death of minor details in our lives or the death of certain ways of thinking can hurt. Something we once believed and no longer believe.   The death of certain opinions, the death of an illusion. 
The death of certain ways of living.
Even the death of something unpleasant can hurt at first.  A job you always wanted to leave and finally do get to leave it.  It can hurt because you’re pushed out of your comfort zone, something you have known for so long. It hurts.  Even though it’s what you wanted.

When hope dies, when faith dies, and we fall, when we have setbacks and seem to fail, we can let this all guide us, push us forward to something bigger and better, we make room for new things, better things, more beautiful things to fall into place.

We can allow our pain, struggles, challenges, failures, setbacks, relapses, and unpleasant experiences to strengthen us, make us wiser, better, enlightened, empowered, and more empathetic and compassionate to others and ourselves.   We can take our pain and struggles as challenges to come up with creative ways to better ourselves and use them to our advantage. 

So, girls think of the woman you long to be, the one you would love to know, be friends with, be in the company of, the woman you KNOW you CAN be and deep inside ARE already her.

Materialize her. Realize her.  

Think of the best girl friend you would love to know or one you have already if you’re that blessed or the the kind of mother you want to be if you want to be one and would love to have for yourself, the kind of sister you would adore, the professor you would look up to in college, the counselor you would love to talk to, the neighbor you would love to chat with on the street, the girl of your dreams….

What do you love about her?  Why do you adore her?  What traits does this beautiful woman possess and display?  What virtues does she embody?   What surrounds her? What dwells within her?  What does she do?   What do you see in her?  What ways does she have about her?  What goals does she have?   What does she dream about at night?   What daydreams occupy her mind?  How does she feel?  How does she love?

If you can dream her, you can be her.

You can recreate yourself into the you that you want to be. You can strengthen and play up the things you already love about yourself and develop the things you want but do not yet possess.

“Act like a lady, think like a boss.”
“She believed she could so she did.”
“She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her away, she adjusted her sails.” ~ Elizabeth Edwards
“She always had that about her, that look of otherness, of eyes that see things much too far, and of thoughts that wander off the edge of the world. ” ~ Joanne Harris
“Girls compete with each other, women empower one another.”

Don’t deny your needs and desires.   Don’t repress yourself.   Let your opinions be heard. Don’t feel threatened by an opinion which opposes yours.   If you know what someone says is or may be correct and you are wrong, admit it, at least to yourself.   Let it shake you up and then change your views.   If you know in your heart of hearts that you are correct then let your opinion be as loud as the opposing one.   Don’t let anyone make you squirm or back down.  Stand tall.   Stand proud.   Stand.
It’s ok to be wrong and it’s ok to give in and see the other side and admit it.
It’s ok to build yourself up.
To call yourself beautiful. 
To love you. 
To cherish you.
Do what makes you happy no matter what, don’t let anyone dull your sparkle or get in your way.   Be true.   Be you.
Take care of yourself, tend to your needs, be selfish occasionally when you have to be for your own mental/emotional/psychological/spiritual & physical health.  Say no when you must.   Say yes to you. 
Buy yourself flowers.
Laugh loudly. Live passionately. Love fiercely. 

Reflect and think about who you want to be, write in a journal, meditate, list qualities you wish to posses or strengthen and ones you want to abandon.

And if you’re not a woman, this can still apply to you. It applies to all humans. We can all work to be a better version of ourselves.

Each moment we fall apart, we are made new. Born again. And again. And again. And again…..a new dawn comes to life. The sun rises again.  Morning has awakened.

Crumble. So you can stand again but even stronger.

“Oh yes, I am wise
But it’s wisdom born of pain
Yes, I’ve paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can do anything .”~ Helen Reddy

“You can bend but never break me
‘Cause it only serves to make me
More determined to achieve my final goal
And I come back even stronger
Not a novice any longer
‘Cause you’ve deepened the conviction in my soul” ~ Helen Reddy

“I’m not a one in a million kind of girl, I’m that once in a lifetime kind of woman.”

“Well I won’t back down, no I won’t back down
You can stand me up at the gates of Hell
But I won’t back down

No I’ll stand my ground, won’t be turned around
And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down
Gonna stand my ground and I won’t back down.” ~ Tom Petty

Let your pain make you better, not bitter.

“Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens.” ~ LeeAnn Womack

Xoxo Kim