It was during the pandemic. Everyone had travelled, and it was just me in the hostel with a couple at the other flat, and we rarely saw each other because there was absolutely no reason for a direct conversation.
I was lonely, sad, and broke, but I didn’t want to travel home because it most likely wouldn’t resolve whatever was going on with me at the time. At some point, I was frustrated because things were so tough that I couldn’t even feed myself properly, however, I had solace in one thing.
My last travel to visit my uncle, I got a phone from him. The phone had a very good camera, and since photography was one skill I had always wanted to explore, it felt like the perfect time to put the skill to test with the help of a YouTube tutorial, but then, the pandemic hit the world, and it hit me really hard.
I was so ready to start showing my skills to the world, but then the world shut down. They went on a break because some plague chose to ravage the world at the time.
Out of frustration, I decided to go out of the house, just maybe I could find something to calm my troubled mind and head. It was chaotic up there, and I knew I needed to calm the storm within. So, I decided to find solace in exploring my photography skills.
I watched tutorials to boost my creativity in snapping very good pictures, and telling a story with my edits, however one thing was lacking: writing mind-blowing captions for my masterpieces.
I was just learning to write, but the chaos within was a crisis I didn’t know how to navigate. I suffered writing blocks even though I was just learning to write. It was hell trying to be creative with everything going on with me, but I did it anyway. How?
I knew it was the only escape I had from keeping depression away, so I tried hard to make it work. I watched YouTube tutorials for inspirations, took walks, sat with nature because I needed to first quiet down the chaotic noise up there in my brain.
It seemed like it didn’t work at first, but eventually, after being persistent with the nature visits, I could hear the thoughts in my mind clearly, and I could use my pen even though it wasn’t perfect. In fact, very far from perfect, but I did it anyway.
I wanted the imperfection to serve as a reminder of my struggles with staying creative amidst crisis, so I just let myself do what I could at the time combining my writing and photography skills.
I would take pictures, edit them lightly, and post online, then, I would get reviews from friends. It was when I started getting requests for my pictures to be used as their phone’s wallpaper was the moment I realized that the imperfection in the pictures and writings were only obvious to me. Putting it out anyway gave me confidence to do more and further explore my creativity.
One day, I got a message from one of my friends. She needed my service as a photographer at her recently launched restaurant, and I went there, took the shots, and she loved them. I got paid too.
I realized that sometimes, within the crisis, creativity could be aroused, it could only require some extra effort to bring it to life.
This is my entry to InLeo prompt for the month of March.
All images are mine.