self portrait thursday 24th february

Today in pictures, originally uploaded by ebbandflo_pomomama.

Each Thursday, for a great number of years, a bunch of Etsy sellers have been taking self portraits and posting them on flickr. It started as a way of staying in contact, and has continued with Etsy Self Portrait Thursday.

Each Thursday I try to take a self portrait. It seems quite vain and I do feel uncomfortable doing the deed in public. Over the years it's been a great snapshot (pun, groan) of my life. Hairstyles have come and gone, parenting stresses have changed, sometimes it's just a hand or a reflection in view, and other times it's a no holds barred look at me.

Recently it's morphed into a semi-regular blog post, where I indulge in some introspection (what else is new?). Today is no different, except that what I've been thinking about was neatly encapsulated in the awesome Amber's most recent post too

... and since I'm a good little blog visitor, I left a comment.

... and since I'm an efficient (?) little blogger, I'm recycling and adding the post below! Happy reading :)

in answer to finding support and community
"I realised that I do place an incredible amount of importance on feeling that someone ‘has my back’ while completing a Mama Renew workshop series almost a year ago. Niggling thoughts crystallised as we talked about setting up community and network – for those two evenings my journal page sat almost empty as I realised how vacant or far-flung my support network actually was. I literally had no one who would catch me if I fell (not even my husband).

Over the last year I’ve set out to ‘find’ my network, my support and happily realised that a lot of it was already there, I just wasn’t nurturing it. As a natural hermit, nurturing and maintaining friendships doesn’t come easy and I’ve held back from offering support because frequently I feel totally inadequate when depressed. I wouldn’t reach out for help as I felt I couldn’t reliably offer it in return. Overcoming the one has helped the other, and in no particular order. It has been hard work, and slightly alien to my natural personality. I’m usually very independent and self-reliant, preferring to keep myself to myself, but now there’s my son to think about.

Following intensive household re-training (!), I now know that the domestic stuff won’t fall completely to pieces if I’m out of the picture. And with taking care of my own personal network, I know that friends have my emotional back, so to speak, as much as I am comfortable with.

I’m supported and offering support in baby steps – it’s taken a year, it’s still a work in progress."

PS: if you'd like to see what's going on in my business life alter ego, check out studio portrait thursday's post here