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A journey through limbo

Life is an amazingly long trip and sometimes I believe it wants…it needs us to just stop and contemplate what we have learned, what we have seen, what we have felt. Life makes a pause to just regather our energies and find the best way forward.

After my wife’s loss of her job, I found myself in the space of white. A nether of hollow. In limbo I resided. For there was no real way forward. The money lenders had sent their wolves barking and scratching at my door. The sleep agents were randomly arriving and disappearing. There was no order, only a chaotic void of narcissism and depression. 

My mental and physical health both took a dive. While I am uncertain that my physical health will ever get back on positive track, the mental health has finally landed upon a solid track once more. My wife finally settling on a job that is both agreeable and financially sound, allows me some leeway to see a better future, and thus, to make plans once more.

Normally every year, at the beginning of the year, I lay down some desired plan for the year. This year was an exception to that trend. I had to wait for the voices to recede. I had to wait for the flames that were burning me, to die out. I had to wait for the universe to decide my time in limbo had come to an end.

Now that things have changed, I can lay forth my plans for the rest of this year. 

As we are all aware, plans often get ruined, even the best laid ones. However, I shall try to follow through on things this year as my health allows. I should briefly speak of my health so that all are aware of what I am up against. I have been having, for nearly a couple years now, vertigo spells. During these spells, the world turns and as it spins, there is ringing in my ears and my heart beat intensifies. I feel like I will faint but I do not. I sometimes wish that I would. I dare not move and standing is way out of my thoughts. I can only sit still and hope it passes. These vertigo spells can become so bad that I sometimes see double. Seeing double while the world is spinning around would be fine perhaps if I was on some carnival ride. Sadly, that is not the case. The spells are scary!

To make matters worse, the doctor is not sure what the issue is. He says I am borderline Diabetic. He has given me Lipitor, but thus far that has not helped at all. These spells have kept me virtually home bound and interfered with any kind of travel. You cannot drive when you are uncertain when a spell might happen. 

Thus between my health and employment issues, I have remained in Limbo. But things have changed, and I can at least begin to move forward, into the creative space I once inhabited, though in a limited capacity.

One of the first things things that needs to be addressed is what has happened with my photos website.

My original intention in creating the site on Fine Art America was to have a place to put my photos online for people to view. I understand that the website is mainly used for selling photos and art. However, that was not a concern of mine. I just did not want to pay some ridiculous amount of money to share the photos with the world. But, a funny thing did happen. People actually bought some of my prints.

While that might be good news for most, and I was certainly not opposed to the idea, I did not like how it was implemented. Let me show you two photos to make it clear what I see as the problem.

This first photo shows my notification of someone buying a rather large print of mine. 

If you will notice, that person bought a 24”x20.250” print and I made $15.08. Does that seem a bit odd? Well, let’s look at this next photo and all will become a little clearer.

In this photo I did a mock up of what the person ordered using the exact description from the sales receipt I received. As you can see, that person spent a whopping $216.28 for the photo, with a frame.

 Now I do get that this is a custom frame size, however I believe they got soaked or I got stiffed. How can a customer spend over $216 and I get only $15? This simply does not seem right! I am the one who spent the money for the camera, I spent the time editing and lastly, I spent the entire day taking photos to get this shot. I am not sure if this is unfair to me, the customer or both of us. Probably both of us and I never want to see this happen again!

Thus I have come to the conclusion that I will have to move my photos site to somewhere else. I want my customers to be charged fairly and I expect to be the one who profits from making sure that is what happens. Yes, a new portfolio site will cost me more per month, however, I believe it will benefit customers, clients, and myself in the long run.

Once I have found and set up a new portfolio site, I will most certainly let everyone know. But know this, it will take some time. Quite possibly several months. After it is up and running, then and only then, will I move on to other matters.

What are those other matters, you might ask? Well, I have been neglecting several things. Mainly, creating new graphics, developing new photos, and writing. And of course, music has been put off for far too long. Sadly, music I believe will always come in last place in my life. While it is easy to sit down and pluck the strings on my guitar, I have found the time vs benefit ratio of creating complete songs, not worthy of my time. 

As for creating new graphics, I will likely get enough of that in the building of my new portfolio site. That leaves developing new photos and writing. Since I won’t have any new photos to develop due to my current health issues, that leaves writing.

So yes, that means for probably what is left of 2019, after the new website is up, I will be writing.

I KNOW there are many out there who will be happy to read this!

It should be mentioned that I also have over 200 photos that have been developed and never been posted to ANY website, that will appear on my new portfolio site. So lots of good things are coming this year for those who are patient.

I might be sick and old, but I have come through limbo and plan on moving as fast as I can, the rest of this year. Please join me…a little company always makes any journey better!

JB