LIFE Rehearsal

The other day, I was editing images from a shoot I did for our church, which happens to be called LIFE Church. When going through this process, I always put the images in their own file, titled by the name of the person or event. Genius, huh? Anyway, as I was finishing up, I realized this new folder needed a name so I decided to call it 'LIFE Rehearsal'. (These particular images were test shots during a rehearsal of a special service they were getting ready to have.) Again... genuis, huh?

The next day, as the actual event was taking place, I, along with three other photographers, could be found running around trying to get various candid and creative shots of all the events taking place at once. One of my favorite kind of jobs, by the way! Once done and breathing a very exhilerating sigh of relief, I began going through all the shots (about 400 of them) so that I could crop and color correct. I knew this would be no small task, but I was excited and honored to be asked so I began to gear up for the job ahead. Actually, in my own personal opinion, shooting a job is the easy part. The real work begins once you sit down at that computer and begin an intimate relationship with Photoshop!

As expected, it took me a few days to get through all the images, but each time I sat down to work and opened up the file, those words, 'LIFE Rehearsal' hit me like a brick! LIFE Rehearsal. Life. Rehearsal. The more I saw and thought about these words, the more I realized that this life we're living isn't a dress rehearsal. There are no do-overs. Not exactly a huge revelation, is it? However, for me, it is. For so long, I spent much of my life waiting. I'm not exactly sure what it was I was waiting on, but for lack of a better way to explain it, I waited. I waited for just the perfect time to get on a plane and take a dream vacation. I waited and got myself psyched up for the right moment to quit smoking. Along these lines, waiting was the name of the game for many areas of my life such as giving up sugar, losing weight, exercising and just getting my life together, in general.

To my dismay, (I've always wanted to use those words in a sentence and thought, 'why wait') this little heart incident that has so rudely interrupted my life has changed my perspective on many things. Actually, I pretty much had no choice. It was either do or die... literally. So, I decided to make a choice and stop waiting. Stop waiting to die, which is seriously what I found myself doing after half my heart decided to stop working on me. I decided to get out and live while I could, no matter what it took. I decided to splurge and buy that camera that I'd had my eye on for the last year and go ahead and upgrade my current Photoshop program so that I could get back to work and follow through with what I've always known to by one of my passions. I decided to just do my best to enjoy each day I am given and take the biggest leap of faith I ever could have imagined and in doing that I have found that it's a pretty amazing life! There are so many fascinating things out there that are right at our fingertips, waiting for us to just grab hold of and go!

At the end of the day, when all is said and done, this life we live here on earth is not a dress rehearsal. As corny and hokey as it may sound, it truly is the real thing and as for me, when I look back, I want to be able to say that living this life of mine was more wonderful than I could have ever dreamed. Having others say, "Man, she really knew how to live..." wouldn't be such a bad thing, either.

xo