Jennifer Bebb's Blog, page 2

choose adventure

We gave up our weekends some 15 years ago. That was the day we decided to become full-time wedding photographers. That was the day we decided Saturday and Sunday (and every other day, to be honest) were going to be our working days.

And it was awesome…for a while.

We started our business when our first son was born. I began shooting just a few weeks after his birth and continued right through my second pregnancy, the birth of my second child, massive health scares, surgeries, injuries, deaths and more.

When you are a wedding photographer and a wedding day rolls around everything, and I mean everything, else is pushed aside as we make that day our first priority.

And it was awesome…for a while.

One day I woke up, forced to acknowledge a nagging voice I had been ignoring for a long time. The voice began to scream at me “LOOK WHAT YOU ARE MISSING!!” (along with a number of other lovely things). It was so loud it stopped me in my tracks and for the first time in a long time I took a long hard look at what we were doing.

In choosing weddings we had made another choice – we chose to give up the weekends with our family and miss the events that were defining our children’s lives. Now that they were in school full time the weekends were our only full days together – weekends were when their lives were happening and we were sending others to witness it.

Our kids were at a place where their lives were happening away from us. And it wasn’t awesome…not even a little bit.

I walked out of our studio that day, literally and figuratively. Steve and I had a long overdue conversation where I shared my need to parent our children on weekends. I felt I could no longer document other people’s lives and miss out on those of my kids. I was done. DONE.

He agreed. It wasn’t long before he wanted to be there with me…with us. And the choice was made – we were going to take a sabbatical from weddings and try out this idea of “weekends” together. In February, 2014 we shot the last wedding on the books for Bebb Studios and waited to see what our weekends would bring.

In the past 6 months we have welcomed adventure into our lives. We have been there for everything that matters and everything that doesn’t. It has been incredible.

We have been to dozens of lacrosse tournaments, seen both our boys win gold at their provincial championships. We bought “IRV” (an RV) for lacrosse and he has taken us to dozens of places we would never have seen. Irv connected us in an unexpected ways and brought the 4 of us back together as an even tighter unit.

We have been on spontaneous adventures to Whistler and Tofino, learning to paddle board one weekend and barrelling down the side of a mountain on another.

Weekends are amazing. Living life with our family is amazing.

And now we are at the crossroads we dreaded – do we once again give up our weekends to document the adventures of others, or do we walk away from that chapter and focus on that which matters most – our own life.

Logan is almost 15. Ethan is 12. We don’t have a lot of time before their lives away from us begin. It isn’t really a choice, is it?

Adventure is waiting, and we are ready to discover it!

getting shit done

Did the title of this post send a shiver up your spine? I cringed writing it.

Yes, I get stuff done, but it’s rarely pretty or worthy of emulation. Some days I feel incredibly organized and accomplished and other days I struggle to get the basics done. Some days I follow all the advice (my own included) and tackle the hard stuff, the ugly stuff, first freeing my mind to enjoy the rest of the day. Other days I put it off and put it off until a day or two, or ten, has passed and this thing is still weighing me down.

After years of this ineffective way of doing things, I’ve discovered that I need to be organized and that I crave the routine that comes from going to an office and doing work while surrounded by other people. It’s not that I can’t do the work on my own when motivated, it’s that I’m not always motivated.

So here it is, my jacked up, hacked up way of getting things done while also ensuring I have time to spend with my family each and every day.

Pomodoro

I recently wrote an article about this on the What If Conference blog, so I’ll let you read the details there. Basically, this technique breaks your work day into manageable chunks of time (25 minutes) followed by a break to do whatever you want (5 minutes). This allows me to set a timer and get things done.  If there is another method you use to manage your day, that’s awesome. I find the Pomodoro Technique works well for me, but the key is finding what works for you and sticking to it.

Forgive

When you don’t get things done, forgive yourself and move on. It’s not the end of the world and if you let it consume you, you will be less effective tomorrow. Some days things just don’t get finished. Apologize to anyone waiting on you, apologize to yourself and remember that you are not perfect, but you are doing your best.

Recommit

When you mess up and don’t finish your whole to-do list or you just have one of those days where nothing was done, commit to trying again. You won’t be efficient or effective if you wallow in your mistakes or shortcomings. Get off your ass and get going – you will feel so much better when you get things done.

Repeat

If you are anything like me this cycle will play out again and again and again. Heck, you may even go several days before you get back on track. Eventually you will have no choice but to get things done – the cycle begins again.

Pomodoro, forgive, recommit, repeat.

Quote

from the road

We are mighty in our cities of glass and steel secure among the crowd. We are arrogant in our belief that we are somehow in control.

To truly feel how insignificant you are, step away from the crowd and wander alone for a time. Wander in the landscapes of the world away from the familiar. Stand as a solitary being in the middle of a field surrounded by grass taller than your head. Walk among the trees of the mountain or through the rocks on the riverbank. Stand on the shores of the ocean in the midst of a storm.

You are but one part of a world you cannot fully understand.

Let go the arrogance of the city dweller and embrace that while you are powerful in your own way you are not omnipresent.

Humility will serve you better than the false sense of security and confidence found in familiar places.

Get outside. Get away from what you know.

We left in “IRV” (our RV) with no plan, just a basic destination and no timeline to get there. As we began driving on unfamiliar roads through unfamiliar landscapes, I began to relax. One night sleeping at a rest stop on a mountain highway and I am strangely refreshed and inspired.

I write too slow for the thoughts in my head. I photograph in an effort to preserve this feeling of rightness I have. I worry that both forms of expression will not do justice to the contentment I feel with the open road ahead and my family all around me.

I look out at a vast and changing landscape that brings something new around each corner. We pass ranch land and boarded up towns, open fields dotted with mountains in the distance, and other drivers on their own journies. We are on our way somewhere, but in no rush to arrive.

What is next? Who cares?

hiatus

I’ve been on an extended hiatus from this site. Actually, I’ve been on an extended hiatus from everything.

I didn’t mean to stop writing here. I didn’t want to stop writing here…I stopped writing everywhere. That’s not entirely true. I’ve been writing. A lot. What I stopped doing was sharing my words publicly.

I have been hoarding each word and keeping it close to my heart…

… private and secret and locked away from judgement and prying eyes.

Maybe I will share why someday. Maybe I will share the doubts and the fears and the anxiety one day. For now I’ll share this…writing helped me.

Immensely.

Completely.

Writing my thoughts, my fears, my disappointments, my hopes…getting it all out of my head and into a place that allowed my some distance made everything easier to process and work through.

When writing, the words poured out without direction. This was stream of consciousness at its best, revealing things my waking mind did not know. Things like:

….hope

…optimism

…trust

…truth

…need

…desire

…love

…fear

My biggest fears and hopes were laid out in front of me and the only thing I needed to do was choose. I chose a hiatus. And now I’m choosing to move forward in a new direction, with renewed vigor and hope, unsure if this will work, unsure if this will be anything other than a vanity project, unsure it if matters to anyone but me. And in that uncertainty I know one thing is true…

I need this. I need to write, to share, to be vulnerable and real and me. All of me, all the bad and the good, unapologetically.

On hiatus I turned a corner in life. I rediscovered the joy of family. I discovered the power in providing. I discovered real whole food and a love of cooking. I discovered strength and conviction. I discovered insecurities buried so deep I didn’t know they were there. I discovered hope, even when things suck. I discovered that I am unique and so are you.

This focus of this blog will shift. My focus will shift. I don’t know how. I don’t know what direction I will follow, but I’m going somewhere.

I hope you will stick around for the ride.

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Half Lives

One life…how many of us live it to the fullest? How many of us pursue our dreams or become the difference. How many choose selfishness over selflessness?

Too many people waste their lives in trivial pursuits and bitter grudges held too long. Too many walk in fear of what might be, never reaching forward for more. Too many cower in the corner and wait for life to happen to them. Too many choose apathy over action.

Living a half life works for many. Living a whole life is hard. It’s filled with challenge, strife, fear and risk. As many times there is success, there is also failure, for those live side by side. Waking every morning to a new challenge is the harder choice, knowing you might fail or falter.

Do it anyway.

Live. Every minute of every day.

Give. Giving to others is worth every sacrifice.

Love. Without reservation or remorse.

Move. There is no room for complacency in this life.

Live. Not a half life, but a whole life.

LIVE.

four letters, starting with c

We’ve banned a word in our house. It’s 4 letters long and starts with “c”. No, it’s not THAT word. Or that one either.

It’s CAN’T.

We won’t use the word “can’t” in our house. It’s part of something we call “lazy language”. Lazy language is used when we’re too lazy to explain something fully, to think it through to the end.  For example, “That’s stupid” isn’t allowed, rather our boys are encouraged to say something like “That [insert random product/idea here] doesn’t make sense because…” or “I don’t like [whatever it is] because…”

As they get older, we become more lenient with what they can say, but the word “can’t” isn’t something we’re going to let back in anytime soon.

See, “can’t” is an excuse, a cop out, most of the time. Sure, there are definitely times when something cannot be done. But most of the time, can’t is not the reason why. (I am not unaware that there really are things that cannot be done, but that’s not what this is about – this about things that can be done, but someone chooses not to.)

All too often when someone says “I can’t” what they really mean is “That scares me”, “I’m afraid to try”, “I don’t want to” or any other number of excuses. But they say “can’t” instead. Maybe they just don’t want to admit the truth.

If you have ever heard Steve and I speak to a group, invariably you will have heard someone in the audience put their hand up and say some variation of “We can’t do that in this market” to which we reply “Why not?”. After a moment of silence, coupled with a little bit of embarrassment, we often hear something like “because no one does that”. Again, we ask “Why not?”.

It stumps most people, that “WHY NOT?” because what that question really means is “What is stopping you?”

What other people do or do not do has no bearing on what we can or will not do. Why let someone else dictate your success or failure? Shouldn’t that be on you? After all, we claim our successes. We need to claim our failures or indecision also. So, what’s stopping you? Answer: you.

We want to raise our boys to believe in chasing dreams and bringing them to life. We want them to know that anything is possible if you set your mind to it and do the work necessary to get there. We want to live by example and show them that you craft your life with your I CANs as much as you do with I CAN’Ts.

Can’t is often the easy choice, the one with less work involved. CAN requires initiative, drive and commitment – scary things for most people. Can’t is safe, Can is risky. Only you know if you CAN or if you WON’T.

Next time you talk yourself out of something at be least honest about it. It’s not that you can’t, it’s that you don’t. And if you don’t that’s fine, but know this – you could have, if you had tried.

twelve to eighteen months

Could you imagine if all you had was twelve to eighteen months…to live, to breathe, to give your children all they need to grow into adults, to be with friends, to love…

…to live.

One year is five hundred twenty five thousand, six hundred minute (525,600). That sounds like a lot of time, but not if it’s all you have.

I watched a good friend live every one of those 525,600 minutes. And then she was gone. It was fast, too fast.

Last year I started to hear about a girl named Jen. She is a lot like I was 4 years ago…same age, two boys the same age mine were, diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Our stories diverged quickly though. Both stories were sudden, scary and overwhelming, but mine ended quickly, with the best outcome I could hope for. Jen’s hasn’t ended yet, but it did not go the same way as mine.

I hid my journey until it was over. Jen invited the world to be part of her’s.

I watched. I hoped. I crossed my fingers and toes and arms so tight…I believed she, like me, was going to be alright. It might be a bit tougher, take a bit longer, but she was going to be fine. It was just too much to believe anything else.

She’s not fine. Not ok, not health wise anyway. She was given her sentence – 12 to 18 months.

And still she fights, and her community fights for her, trying to raise enough money for Jen to attend a clinical trial and maybe, just maybe, kick cancer in the ass.

No risk factors. No reason to believe this was coming. Nothing she could have done to stop it…

I don’t know Jen, but she is me. She is my story with a different middle. She is my biggest fear come to life, the bullet I dodged at the same age. She is my hero in how she’s handling this. She is living her 525,600+ minutes with the kind of determination and grace I desperately hope I would have. She is not quitting, not waiting for her minutes to run out.

Help her fight. Help her win. Help her raise her boys to men, dance at their weddings and one day hold her grandchildren in her arms.

If we all do a little bit, it will be a lot.

I gave today. And I will give $50 from every single sign up for the What If Conference and BoomCrush and each wedding I book from now until Jen gets her clinical trial. It’s not a lot, but it will help. It will all help.

Jen is each of us, Jen is me. I am Jen. And I’m going to help her fight, however I can.

a different ending

Sports parents are nuts. Not all of them, but a lot of them.

I am just home from three days of an intense selection camp. Logan made it to the Team BC Lacrosse camp for PeeWees (11 + 12 year olds), so we made the 4 hour trek to Kelowna, BC and settled in for a weekend of lacrosse.

Designed as a way to whittle the top 60 athletes down to a team of 20, this had the potential to be a high pressure situation for the kids. And for many I’m sure it was. But for many more kids, it was about playing the game with the best of the best, having fun on the floor and making new friends.

The parents, though, were a whole other thing to watch. I’m as competitive as it gets – when it comes to my own life. I like to succeed and when I choose to compete, I want to win. But that’s my life, my choice and my chance to shine, or not, in my efforts.

I want my kids to always showcase their very best, whatever their best might look like. The key words there, though, are “their very best”. Not mine – their’s. I have no desire to live vicariously through their success – that belongs to them and only them. My kids have to succeed because they want to, and they have to live with what their efforts bring them. I just have to congratulate or commiserate, as the case may be.

Too many parents sat with tense shoulders and frowns on their faces, noticing every little thing their children did wrong this weekend. Missed passes, dropped balls, poor positioning – those things happen, but for some it was like the world ended. Parents left the rink, heads low, grumbling about how poorly their boys played, and I found myself both amused and bemused by what I was seeing, sad that those parents were putting their own hopes and dreams in front of their children’s. The truth is, these boys are 12, caught between boy and man, and the pressure put on them was enough to crush adults.

Don’t get me wrong, I wanted Logan to shine, to choose greatness on this weekend. But what I wanted more was to see him fall in love with his sport again, remembering the joy of the game, regardless of who was watching. I wanted him to make new friends, try new things, and be twelve with 59 other boys the same age. I wanted him to fit it, to stand out, to be a team player, to be selfish enough to do something amazing. I wanted him to want it and to show how good he can be. I wanted him to laugh, to be excited about getting to the rink, to be proud of what he was doing, and to have fun.

Fun. That’s what sport is supposed to be. Fun.

But it’s not my choice, never my choice, how he plays the game. When Logan walks onto the floor he is completely in control of what happens next – it is up to him, completely up to him, to chase greatness, to be a team player, to be selfish, to be generous, to love each moment, and to trust his teammates. No one can play his game for him. This is, perhaps, the only place in his life right now where he is in charge of what happens next.

So I watched quietly, wanting him to make his dreams happen. Wanting so badly for him to be proud of his efforts and to be rewarded for that. I wanted him to know the joy of having a dream come true.

And he did . He wasn’t interested in making the final 20. For a lot of reasons, he did not want to play for this coach and with some of the boys he knew would make it. He wanted the experience of the camp, and he got that.

Logan reminded me of something very important this weekend – the finish line isn’t always the destination. Sometimes, the journey itself is more important than the finish line; the journey is the destination. Logan’s dream for this weekend was different than mine…

His dream was better, his ending different. And he did exactly what he needed to do.

He laughed as he left the rink and got in the car. Laughed, and joked with his brother, and told stories about his new friends.

A different ending….a better one.