it was never about letting go

* These photos were shot by myself and Abby
Models: Myself + Abby
** All the photos in this post set were
edited by me.
*** Somewhere in Philly

A year ago, I set out to one of our favorite cities around your anniversary. My thoughts were to find ways to let go while still trying to feel like I wasn’t letting go, if that makes any sense. ***It’s also crazy that it took me a year for me to finally feel good with all of these and setting the moods I feel like really captured the feelings I felt and yet, here we are, at the craziest timing. Of course, I feel like there’s some kind of meaning behind that, too.
I spent two nights and about 3 days there, walking around. Meeting people. Going to all of our favorite spots, finding random places to snag a few minutes of rest. I fell in love with the city all over and I never felt alone.
And it hit me, if I came out here to celebrate your life, to find a way to let go and still hold on — I started looking for new places. Going in my own directions, setting a new path. One of my own, but one that I know you’re still with me as I push forward.

Today is 4 years. I don’t miss you any less. I still can’t find the words, in which, I should be getting used to by now. I just always feel like there’s so much to say and I’m sure there is but, in the long run - does it matter much? I’m at a point where I know I’ll never not be sad but, I can do more with it and I plan to.
I can’t hold onto the sadness but, I can live for you and still do the things we always wanted to. I can still find inspiration in your words and from our conversations to keep me going in a better path. And, I think you’d want me to honor your life in taking chances and living my best life.

These were shot in a random place I stumbled into while wandering around between 2-4am in Philadelphia. The balloons represent a tattoo idea I still haven’t gotten. Also, ever since I was younger, at funerals, it became a personal thing for me to always get a balloon and write messages on it to let go and send away to the sky at the end. I wanted to do my thing while also be somehow being more into it, Abby came out to help and we decided I should be both taking photos and in them as well.
These photos mean a lot and I dont feel like I’m writing them any justice -or if I need to - but, I just wanted to take a second to throw it out there — you might not see or understand all the little things that made these images come to be, but there was a lot of thought and meaning into all of it.

This was our city, now I go there by myself - but, I’m never really alone when I’m there, just unknowing to what adventures await me.

" This is your life and its ending one moment at a time. "

A Caged Bird // Free the mind, the soul
A small self-portrait series
All quotes from Fight Club

“Warning: If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or, are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think every thing you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned.”

“At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.
Only after disaster can we be resurrected. It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything. Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart.
We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.”

i have no love

Somewhere lost in Philadelphia
Between the times of 12am - 4am

To the times where I feel like nothing that I do really means anything
or that none of it will ever really matter
and I need to just disappear - I feel at home alone and lost in cities with nowhere to go,
nowhere to be, no one to be. It’s some time after 2 in the morning and everything feels okay
where I’m just a ghost among a bunch of strangers just going about their lives.

Sometimes, it makes me see things clearly and other times — it just helps make those thoughts feel not so heavy — it’s okay to be lost.

And maybe, this does matter — Maybe, I just don’t know it. Maybe, I just can’t see it.

summer's over

Candid shots
shot @ Mount Olive, NJ

Being completely in the moment at the exact right time, it feels like such a rare thing.

Other times, you have to push for certain things to happen and sometimes, things happen to you too suddenly that push you to make the decisions you have to make.

I’m in another state of transition and I’m wondering what my next steps are and where I want to push things towards. But, in the extra time, I’ve been letting myself take in life little by little again. Finding joy in everything that I felt like I was starting to lose. I lost myself this year and a lot of it was in trying to make better choices that really just allowed myself back into complacency and it wore me back down.

I’m feeling like myself again with new experience to work with — actually, a lot more as I think back on now because too much has happened and I fell back face to face with the person I was trying to grow away from to begin with.

By this time next year, I want to find myself in a whole new place that I never thought I’d find myself and to be honest, — for the first time in a long time — I don’t feel like that’s too far off. I just have to keep reminding myself if the small things don’t work out how I see them right now that it’s still going to be fine.

I always end up where I need to be.

/ / / / / / / / / /

nos·tal·gic

adjective

1. 1.

   characterized by or exhibiting feelings of nostalgia.

   synonyms: wistful, evocative, longing/yearning/pining for the past, romantic, sentimental, emotional about the past, regretful, dewy-eyed, maudlin, homesick

It's funny how nothing changes but everything has.
Familiar faces become not so familiar.
Some songs will take on new meanings; while others will bring you right back into exact moments of forgotten memories.
Photos will always take you back and remind of the better things that you didn’t know you were missing.
Home begins to feel less and less like home but, you go visit old hometowns and places you spent endless days and nights in - just to have a different feeling loom over you as you wander around realizing how different everything is.
And, when the smiles begin to fade from the reminders — I wonder if I’ll ever feel those feelings again — if they’ll ever feel that impactful as they once did. I wonder if I’ll ever have friends like that again and if things will ever feel new again.