SMILE! – The Universe is Watching
Here’s a little incredibly well known fact about me: I have exactly two expressions that show up in every photograph ever taken of me.
1. Crazy smile
2. Kissy face
This one even has crazy eyes to go with the crazy smile
happy happy happy
I’m the QUEEN of SMILEY FACES!
This is going somewhere, I promise.
On my drive to work, I was thinking about all kinds of super intelligent, very important things. As I do every day. Because I’m incredibly cerebral. Mostly, I was just looking at the gloomy clouds and starting to dread the day a little bit.
And then it happened. That day-altering moment where you have a thought that sets the course for your day.
I’ve recently been trying to book a birth photographer. Crazy, right? Pictures of having a baby? But that’s not the point. The point is that I’ve been emailing with a couple of different photographers and the last exchange I had with this woman left a HUGE impression on me.
We were booking a time for a consultation and when she said she was looking forward to meeting me, she followed that statement by saying “I’m so excited, truth be told!”
I know it’s a small thing, but it’s ENTHUSIASM. You could feel her smile in her words. I immediately pictured her in our home for the birth and it felt good and right. I wanted her there.
Remembering that exchange completely shifted my mood. I began to look forward to the rest of my day and I felt myself starting to smile. I shifted away from the gloomier, introspective music on my playlist and put on something more upbeat. My day changed.
The world is a great big place full of all kinds of people. You never know if someone is going to be a fast friend or a total douchebag. You can’t tell if someone hates your hair or is just having a bad day. Life can be scary – but smile. Give people a chance to want to know who you are.
I’ve know many people in my life who are incredibly negative and pessimistic about everything. These people always seem to be surrounded by a big black cloud of misery and terrible things happen to them all the time. Coincidence? I think not.
You get what you give, kittens. Like attracts like. Sure, nobody’s life is perfect. But it’s when you start to dwell on the crap that it starts to really pile up.
Smile, kittens, and the world smiles with you. Or at least I will. Because I’m always the girl with the crazy smile, trusting that good things will happen.
And they do.
I like your crazy smile!
Thanks!!!
Wonderful sentiment. Some day are truly not made by good forces though. Some days, just suck, but for the most part, this is soooooo true.
Agreed. There will always be shitty days. And we’re all entitled to spend a day or two wallowing with a giant tub of peanut butter Rolo ice cream. I just don’t think that those days should be the norm…no matter HOW amazing that ice cream is.
totally
so so so so so so so so so so so SO glad we met! you’re beautiful, i see your soul in each smile you share with us. i wish i lived closer, i’d be HONORED to do your birth photography!
you like how i assume?!
OMG I was totally thinking about you this morning while I was driving to work. I can’t even IMAGINE how beautiful your birth photography would be. You have the most keen eye ever and I bet you would capture every single moment with such honesty, beauty, and grace that it would make me WEEP!
awwww, you are too good to me!! i promise you this – i will give you a free portrait session the first time we meet, duh!
SPONTANEOUS APPLAUSE!!!
But I have the dorkiest smile!!! My husband loads up his phone with pictures of me and my buck-toothed goofy grin and it’s so embarrassing! Your smile is awesome… sooo jealous.
“Crazy eyes” or not!
I don’t believe that for a second! Besides, smiles that one does for photos are different than genuine, spontaneous smiles of every day life-itude. I have full faith in you.
Beautifully said, my love. I always try to remember to smile at people, and genuinely mean it. I naturally have a very un-smiley face, and I know people feel the difference between smiling vaguely and looking somewhere else, versus actually FEELING the smile … like asking a cashier how she is, and looking here in the eye and smiling and MEANING it – may just make her day better, and I always feel better about standing in line forever. And I’ve realized in my old age that if I feel crappy, forcing a smile really truly does lift my spirits. Yay for smiles. Especially for yours.
And people, it’s true, every photo I have of Anita has one of 2 faces! (because you can’t do a kissy-face and smile at the same time!). But every one is beautiful. So really, who needs more faces?
You have one of my favorite faces on the planet!
And PS – I know of one photo where you weren’t pulling one of those two faces, and I fell in love with it (I saved it. I’m a stalker.). It is absolute emotion encompassed in a photo. I will find it in your blog and post there now.
OOOOOOO EXCITING! I love seeing the results of other people’s stalking!
So true! I am also with you on the face in a photo thing. People tell me that photos of my face *do not even look like me* and that I look totally different in person. You wouldnt believe how often I have been told that. I think they mean I am not as scary looking