| the end |

Well, here it is - I am finally finished. 365 days of photos, of me, of friends, of turmoil and sadness, happiness, pain, and tears. All of my flaws have been placed out on the table over the span of the year for the world to see, and yet, I find that that is perfectly okay with me.

It's weird. One year ago, I would not have believed that I would be writing this. I never thought I would finish. One year ago, I would not have showed most of my body to the world. Yet here I am, with several photos that scare me right down to the core uploaded online.

Sometimes I even wonder if this is real, if it actually happened. I feel as though the only evidence that it did happen are the photos. But isn't that how every year is? A year goes by, and you don't feel any different, any older, but the fact remains that you are older and you have changed. For me, the ability to look back and visibly see the changes in myself through my photography is absolutely mind-blowing. From this project, I have felt and seen myself grow and change. The confidence I have in my photography and myself has exceeded any limit that I had ever set for myself.

To be honest though, I would not have made it if it weren't for my friends and family. Everyone put up with this project. The nights I was up late, the socializing events I had to pause to take and upload a photo, the cameras/computers/phones I sometimes used that were not my own - all of these things and more show reasons why I could not have done this alone. I love every single one of you to pieces, and I want to tell you all thank you. You all mean the world to me.

People have been asking me what it feels like to be done. It feels...amazing. I don't think it has fully hit me yet (or ever will). I won't lie, this project was not easy. Some days, I came really close to giving up. I was just so sick of it. I moaned and whined about it, and then someone kicked me in the rear and I just did it. Other days, the photos flowed out of me like liquid poetry and whatever solidified became something beautiful and solid, straight from the deepest part of my core.

Regardless, each photo still represents a part of me. Some parts are the one's that are permanent, others are ever-changing, and other parts were just fleeting moments, pieces I will never get back but cherish and love all the same. Placing myself in front of the camera has made me focused and determined. If I can make myself feel beautiful in front of a camera, I feel as though I can make anyone feel beautiful. Photography is my life and dream, I know this for sure now. The feel and weight of a camera in my hands is something I think only people with a passion can understand. It's solid, it's sure, and it's something I know will never betray me or let me down.

To sum up this past year in a handful of events: I have stayed up all night to learn the about the best part of my best friend, saved a friend's life, gained an amazing boyfriend, lost my grandmother, learned about my grandfather's brain tumor, finished my second year of college, made and got closer with two new and amazing friends, watched my brother move into his own place, watched some of my best friends graduate from high school and college, been in the hospital, lost a boyfriend, and have seen where my true loyalties lie. Each and every one of these things had a significant impact on my life and the changes I went through. While not all of them are necessarily good memories, they are things I would never change.

To anyone who reads this, please consider doing your own 365. What you're reading right now cannot explain to you what it does for the mind, body, and soul. I have learned so much about myself, that I feel as though nothing could ever sway me to change other than myself. The journey I have experienced is something I wish I could share with all of you, yet I know I already have. The highest compliment I received during this project was when I saw one of my photos make a friend cry. The fact that something I created could move a person to tears, or to simply feel any kind of emotion is the best compliment I could ever get. Despite this though, without finding your own passion and doing your own 365, you will never understand the feelings I feel, despite the photographs and quotes. It is something I wish everyone could experience though.

On a final note, thank you again to all of you. This would not have happened without you. From here, I'm going to pick up my camera and keep on clicking. Maybe not of myself, but maybe instead of you. I want to make you feel beautiful. And you, you, you, and you - all of you. I now believe that inside of every person there is a core that shows your true beauty. I feel as though I have captured that within myself. I took my lens and zoomed into the deepest parts of me - the darkest nooks and crannies of my heart. With every photo I took, a little bit more was discovered, polished, and shown to the world. My goal is to zoom into everyone's core, polish things up, and show your true beauty to the world. If I could do that, well, let's just say it's going to take some time.

Once again, I thank all of you and hope everyone has a wonderful and beautiful year =)

| day 365 |

"I am a camera, with its shutter open, quite passive. Some day, all of this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed."

| day 364 |

"I'm strong on the surface, not all the way through. I've never been perfect, but neither have you."

| day 363 |

"The bridge will only take you halfway there, to those mysterious lands you long to see. Through gypsy camps and swirling Arab fair, and moonlit woods where unicorns run free. So come and walk awhile with me and share the twisting trails and wondrous worlds I've known. But this bridge will only take you halfway there. The last few steps you have to take alone."

| day 362 |

"She who reconciles the ill-matched threads of her life, and weaves them gratefully into a single cloth – it’s she who drives the loudmouths from the hall and clears it for a different celebration."

| day 361 |

"How hard is it to paint a pretty girl?"

| day 360 |

"And she knows she's more than just a little misunderstood."

| day 359 |

"Boy poison - a boy's kisses were like a poison, which infected you and after you were exposed you craved more, like an addict."

| day 358 |

"Review my wishes for fair weather, 'cause I know if it clouds or rains or snows, you won't be there. How weak is that? Wish I was worth it to you."

| week fifty-one |

So...this is the last full week. Holy shit.

| day 357 |

"From all that I can collect by your manner of talking, you must be two of the silliest girls in the country. I have suspected it some time, but I am now convinced."

| day 356 |

"I worried so much about how I looked and whether I was doing things right, I felt half the time I was impersonating a girl instead of really being me."

| day 355 |

"We too, must shatter the mirrors. We must look in to ourselves and root out the distortions until that thing which we know in our hearts is perfect and true, stands before us."

| day 354 |

"There's a bird that nests inside you, sleeping underneath your skin. Yeah, when you open up your wings to speak, I wish you'd let me in."

| day 353 |

"But I thought that I should tell you, if it's not to late to say, I could put back all the pieces, they just might not fit the same. Nothing's worth losing, especially the chance to make it right."

| day 352 |

"Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard."

| day 351 |

"I had thought of all the things I had done, and couldn't undo. And I longed for a moments peace."

| week fifty |

T-minus 15 days...what?

| day 350 |

"Self pity becomes your oxygen. But you learned to breathe it without a gasp. So, nobody even notices you're hurting."

| day 349 |

"She danced. She sang. She took. She gave. She loved. She created. She dissented. She enlivened. She saw. She grew. She sweated. She changed. She learned. She laughed. She shed her skin. She bled on the pages of her days, she walked through walls, she lived with intention."

| day 348 |

"But the space between where you're smilin' high is where you'll find me if I get to go. The space between the bullets in our firefight is where I'll be hiding, waiting for you."

| day 347 |

"It will come sometime. Some beautiful morning she will just wake up and find it is tomorrow. Not today, but tomorrow. And then things will happen...wonderful things."

| day 346 |

"Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless."

| day 345 |

"What you do, the way you think, makes you beautiful."

---

This idea was taken from the "Uglies" series by Scott Westerfeld. At age 16, everyone undergoes an operation to make them "pretty", giving them perfectly symmetrical features, perfect skin, big eyes, etc. - all for the sake of equality. In the book, the technology allowed the "uglies" to transform their faces on a digital screen to see what they would look like after the operation. I attempted to duplicate this...and found my right side is more beautiful!

| day 344 |

"She never slows down. She doesn't know why, but she knows that when she's all alone, feels like it's all coming down, she won't turn around. The shadows are long and she fears if she cries that first tear, the tears will not stop raining down."

| week forty-nine |

I am quite literally in the final stretch. Has it really been a year? I have about 3 weeks left of an entire year of photos. I have no idea what I'm going to do when it's over.

Also, by the end of this, I will have a decent post to share with anyone who actually reads my blog.

Until then...

| day 343 |

"I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while."

| day 342 |

"Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone."

| day 341 |

"From this new and intimate perspective, she learned a simple, obvious thing she had always known, and everyone knew; that a person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn, not easily mended."

| day 340 |

"If those cats could of dug me and my gangster ways, they would have hung up their guns and dug into their graves."

| day 339 |

"Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine - you taste so bitter and so sweet. Oh, I could drink a case of you darling and I would still be on my feet. Oh, I would still be on my feet."

| day 338 |

"Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts. That's what little girls are made of; the heck with sugar and spice."

| day 337 |

"I got lost in the night without the light of your eyelids, and when the night surrounded me, I was born again: I was the owner of my own darkness."

| week forty-eight |

Whoa. Less than a month!

| day 336 |

"We are all like fireworks. We climb, shine and always go our separate ways and become further apart. Then, even if that time comes, let's not disappear like a firework and continue to shine forever."

| day 335 |

"Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."

| day 334 |

"She knew that for her the greatest sin now and in the future was to delude herself. It had been a long lesson but she had learned it. Either you think--or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you."

| day 333 |

"I don't care if it hurts - I want to have control, I want a perfect body, I want a perfect soul, I want you to notice when I'm not around. You're so fucking special. I wish I was special."

| day 332 |

"Maybe you're just a daydream, taken out of my window panes, making sure everything is just alright."

| day 331 |

"An empty frame, in which the picture is always changing, makes a statement about how time is always passing. It doesn't really stop, even in a single image. It just feels that way."

| day 330 |

"It's easy to look at people and make quick judgments about them, their present and their past, but you'd be amazed at the pain and tears a single smile hides. What a person shows to the world is only one tiny facet of the iceberg hidden from sight. And more often then not, it's lined with cracks and scars that go all the way to the foundation of their soul."

| week forty-seven |

35 days!?!

| day 329 |

"Lady, lady, never speak of the tears that burn your cheek- She will never win him, whose words had shown she feared to lose."

| day 328 |

"Between the two extremes, the nightmares and the dreams, the colors blend to one and I'm overcome in a white hot light."

| day 327 |

"After so many years running from fear, fleeing crazily, uselessly, she was finally coming to a halt."

| day 326 |

"So often this summer I keep thinking: I know I'm holding back. I know I'm waiting. I know I'm afraid to go forward. But I don't know how to get there from here."

| day 325 |

"I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality, rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills. But I am here, my legs blocks of concrete, my lungs empty of air, my throat burning. There will be no floating away."

| day 324 |

"So I should be aware of the dangers of self-consciousness, but at the same time, I’ll be plowing through the fog of all these echoes, plowing through mixed metaphors, noise, and will try to show the core, which is still there, as a core, and is valid, despite the fog. The core is the core is the core. There is always the core, that can’t be articulated. Only caricatured."

| day 323 |

"All I can do is keep breathing."

| week forty-six |

Blah.

| day 322 |

"Wherever you will go, I will let you down - but this lullaby goes on."

| day 321 |

"Open me up and you will see I'm a gallery of broken hearts. I'm beyond repair, let me be, and give me back my broken parts. Just give me back my pieces, just give them back to me please. Just give me back my pieces and let me hold my broken parts. I just want to be ok."

| day 320 |

"The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clearing, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in the abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace."

---

I usually stray away from overediting, but I liked this a lot.

| day 319 |

"I could float here instead, but there's a calm under the waves, so I choose to sink."

| day 318 |

"Outlook not so good."

| day 317 |

"Maybe our girlfriends are our soulmates and guys are just people to have fun with."

| day 316 |

"I had forgotten that time wasn't fixed like concrete but in fact was fluid as sand, or water. I had forgotten that even misery can end."