The way I am seeing things.

I find that lately, I am having trouble articulating myself and saying what I mean, let alone what I feel. I also have been having a lot of trouble feeling very optimistic right now about my future. A number of setbacks have taken the air from the sails of my recent successes as a photographer.

Perhaps, I was a bit too gungho about following this career. Work has slowed to a stop and I am seriously contemplating on looking for a part time job to supplement the photography work. This would mean that I couldn't devote the time to improve myself or my craft. It also means that I won't have the time to look for more paying work.

It also makes me wonder if all of us who live on this planet have to make choices from bad options and worse ones. Must sacrifice and compromise accompany everything we do? Did my dreams so far outstrip my reality? Was the bar of my expectations so high? Unfortunately, there is no hiding from these questions. Sleeping on it will not make them any clearer or solve the problems that plague me.

I feel like I am stuck in place no matter how hard I strive and I begin to wonder if I need someone to help me take that first step forward towards progress. That I cannot ever be successful if I go it alone. Ironic, now that I am more alone than I have ever been.

It's not to say that my friends have abandoned me, more that I no longer can maintain the illusion that things are going well with me. I spend too much time staring off into the distance to make my friends comfortable and they are sensitive enough to recognize my unhappiness. Why should I inflict my dismay with the cards I have been dealt recently and dampen their happiness with life. You might say that that is what friends are for, but I also recognize that their burdens shouldn't include my own.

I recently spent some time talking to an elderly couple, both retired and enjoying their life as grandparents. After my conversation with them, they realized how difficult the economy has become and I realized how negatively I am seeing things in my life right now. This can't continue and I have no idea how to turn it around.