Maybe this time will be different…

Zara tank (similar)
Zara shorts (similar)
Sezane sandals
Ellen James bag
Zara sunglasses (similar)
& Other Stories necklace (similar)
Wolf Circus necklace (similar)
Keltie Leanne Designs ring (c/o)
Madewell rings
& Other Stories earrings (similar)
Location: Piazzale Michelangelo – Florence, Italy

“Let go of the illusion that it could have been any different.”

The first time I read those words, in the form of an unattributed quote, they felt like an epiphany. Like most people, there are moments of my life that I will always wish I could “do over”… the idea being, of course, that this time, I could be able to “get it right.”

There are no do-overs. The crux of those twelve words that felt so eye-opening to me is that things cannot be different unless you yourself become different – and even then, the other person or people or things in the situation would also have to be different in order for a proverbial “do over” to come out the way you wish it would have. Letting go is harder but, ultimately, worth the effort, the way so many things that take real work are.

But because letting go is hard, sometimes that quote that felt so meaningful when I first read it, the one that I refer to so often, comes back to remind me that I still have work to do on letting go of things. After some seriously stressful moments during our three months in Paris, the worst example of which I talked about in agonising detail, I resolved to relax about photos. It’s okay if my hand is blurry because I was moving – I move, because I’m alive. It’s okay if my clothes are a bit wrinkled sometimes, no one has time to waste on ironing every day. And it’s even okay if I just hate photos and throw them away – I’m under no obligation to anyone but me, after all.

It’s easy to type all of that out. It’s harder to remember it in the moment. Especially in a moment that happens on vacation, when we have a finite amount of time to do all we want to do. Every time we go away, I think to myself, Maybe this time it will be different and I won’t turn into an obsessive perfectionist who is disappointed in herself for no good reason during a photoshoot. But it never is. The moment always comes, like the moment when these photos were taken, when we arrived at Piazzale Michelangelo to see what promised to be a magical sunset… only to find it crowded, still brightly lit after six pm and, quite simply, more impressive in travel guide descriptions than in person.

I could have lived with that disappointment. Even though it happened after a long walk uphill. What I couldn’t live with were the clouds of mosquitos that attacked me the moment we arrived at the top. The sad thing is, we did wind up finding this beautiful staircase for photos. But, constantly slapping at my wrists and ankles, I was distracted, frustrated and, felt like giving up because I was sure the photos would be awful.

Yep. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. I was positive.

I was wrong, of course, which is why I’m sharing these photos today. I am often wrong, when I want things to go a certain way and the universe forces me to deviate from my well thought out plans. When I looked at these photos a week after we took them, I realised some were quite lovely. They were all totally different than I expected they would be in the moment. And that, it turns out, is just one more thing I have to let go of – the idea that even now that my approach to taking photos is more relaxed, every shoot will go more smoothly. That isn’t a realistic expectation to impose on myself – or on my photographer.

Our evening at Piazzale Michelangelo could not have been any different. And I have the bug bite scars to prove it. Part of me would still like a do-over, but the rational part of me, the one that believes that quote, knows these are the photos we would get either way.