Updating My Internal Bio
Written by Sydney Tate Bradford
Graphics by Lily Hobl
There are days where putting things off can be completely fine. There are others where it tumbles, and the one moment of discretion reveals itself as detrimental, uninformed, and at least three steps back.
I should have done this sooner. Okay, I’ll rephrase—I chose not to and back myself on that decision, but now it’s time to catch up. Still, I don’t want to! It’s gotten to be too much.
Consequently, I wait. I take more “time to myself” and it only gets worse. I’m adding quotations because even knowing that:
space from external responsibility would be helpful,
my duty to my health and wellness takes priority,
this is not the point of living,
— it’s only acceptable to step away from my commitments for so long. The list compounds in on itself almost picking up speed, like a snowball turned avalanche. It’s one thing after the other and getting started feels like I’ve poured concrete as I’m thinking, “that would be ideal,” and by the time I’ve looped through all thoughts of shame about it, it’s hardened and heavy.
Though, again, it’s one thing after the other. Getting started is the most challenging part and I’ve understood the mental gymnastics it forces me into on occasion. There’s no finally better or eventually perfect that I’ll reach, but there are different approaches and tools I can acquire to ease my experience and make things better for everyone.
Am I cut out for this down the line? Ideally, yes. Why am I stuck here again?
A circle, again, it’s one thing after the other. There’s no extra time allotted for rest and it is up to me to know myself. That’s what I think I’m doing when I put things aside. I need time, I need space, so I’m taking it, and there it is. Perpetual, insistent, and reliable (this path I keep stumbling down).
I am a human being that finds passion and employment through photography. I am a proud dropout, an admirer of the mountains, and a gardener. I am an editor, a designer, a writer, a model, a lover of alliteration, a performer, a skater, a videographer, and so on. I am anything I would like to be, within reason, and I am navigating all nine million roles of running a business and finding fulfillment with inattentive type ADHD.
It’s something confirmed that I can name, and a large consideration alongside every other inkling or assumption about the ways my head and my heart communicate or what they’ve been through.
It isn’t anything I keep from anyone. I’m happy to talk about it, but I’ve been hesitant to talk about it frequently online. For a number of reasons, I have a thwarted view and relationship with vulnerability on social media profiles. It used to be exciting when I thought it could comfort or inform others, but it feels more useless after being taken advantage of, being trivialized, or seeing that vulnerability used as a means to create a false sense of closeness. By no means am I referring to it as useless on a broad scale — it isn’t to be discarded completely — but it maybe isn’t for me right now in that way, or ever.
Still, I would like to try, and it is essential to how I’ve found operating a business as well as my personal life and inner world.
I am so many things and none of them are encompassed by a single hobby, a demeanor, a detail, or a profession. For obvious reasons, I feel overly defined in the moments of “lack.” When I am taking what feels like “too much” time to myself and it’s causing a delay in the time I can give to friends or clients, it’s taken internally as a moral failing, somehow indicative of my fitness for a career at all.
By any means, I understand this is untrue. And unfortunately, I began this piece in the first place while procrastinating to the nines. I would need more than two hands' worth of fingers to count the tasks I’ve put off since this time last week. There’s immense room for growth, and I would like to view that as more exciting than damning. I have so much to learn, and I am hopeful for that capacity, as it moves with myself and alongside others.
Now, editing this piece again far outside of that spiral into overwhelm, it feels like just another notion. It’s all in the process, in the discovery of becoming and allowing myself to be. As is, and with ample opportunity to adapt and change in the ways that feel right.
As I grow, I would like to continue to adopt understanding and curiosity as a core tenant. With myself, my partner, my friends, and the earth. Of course, that can be assumed as present, but I believe it can harmonize just as beautifully with parameters and boundaries for any relationship, so applying that to my artistry and work is key. It’s about working together and being honest with ourselves and each other.
How do we redefine what existing as people in our current society looks like? It’s a broad question, but here, I am harping on the details revolving around immediacy culture and how that can be harmful to our complex realities as individuals. It’s interconnected in a lot of ways, but the main thoughts boil down to the fact that we are not meant to live this way. It takes a lot of privilege to even be able to consider redefining this for myself.
In my planning, I suppose it is equivalent to setting up an arm of dominoes. There’s little room for mistakes in the spacing, but when one is just a little off, it thwarts the rest. Likewise, when my brain tips the first domino over, it can be demanding to feel like I was ever ready to witness them falling. I want to keep up, I know in my heart that I can, but the tousle and the tango that my neurons are all engaging in definitely does a good job of tricking me into thinking I am less than. I end up changing my approach and allowing far more room for these moments in the ways I communicate to others as one means of responsibility. It’s acceptance and peace with the matter, no matter the reason or why.
To be fair, I’ve come a long way in the last five years in communicating with myself internally. That is something to be proud of, and I am accepting of this ebb and flow.