Motherhood Magic | January 2020

I always wanted to write, I’m not entirely brilliant at it.  But I can document a moment and my photography says everything I never could.  I want to shoot things that make me feel something.  That will make me feel as much at the time it’s taken, as it will in 20 years. When my babies are grown and I’m thumbing through a box of old photographs with them on a quiet Sunday afternoon.

I started the Motherhood Magic project last January after months of thinking about it and doubting everything I came up with.  I found myself longing for the change that January always promises.  A lot had happened in the years before and I knew if I continued on the path I’d found myself on, then things were never going to get better.  Things were never going to change.  And I’d be ‘stuck’ in this cycle always looking out at everyone else and wondering how they got so lucky, flourishing at everything they did, no matter what it was.

I had PND with the twins.  I barely felt like I’d started to recovered and Lucy arrived.  I scraped by on the shred of mental health I had left, I lost days, sometimes weeks.  I was missing coffee dates and forgetting things.  I rarely left the house and just wasn’t me anymore. I barely picked up my camera, the weight of it in my hands just felt too much and would just take a handful on my phone just to remember that I was there or to send to my husband to let him know we were ok, when typing those words felt like a complete lie.  I took them so that I remembered when I was in those moments, that I was doing my best.

I struggled to concentrate on anything and it felt like the world was going forward without me and I was just stood watching it go by.  I needed a way of being creative and bringing myself back as well as working on my mental health.  Photography has always been that outlet for me and without that small handful of iphone images I’d never believed I was there. I wanted to be present, I wanted the kids to grow up and see I was there too even if that was a messy bun, a kitchen full of dishes or a birthday by the sea.

And that’s how Motherhood Magic was born.  For the biggest of moments you know you’ll remember and those tiny ones that you’ll forget until you look back on them and long to have those wee moments back.

I let this project slide and by the end of the year I was still taking photos but lost my confidence with posting them.  So, here’s my first of 2020 and I’ll be sharing them at the end of each month.  It’s a project that you can be involved in too.  You can tag your images on instagram with #motherhood_magic and share your images with me.

I can’t wait to see you Mama’s!