In almost a year now, I’ve been posting my hopes and dreams as well as some of the humdrum aspects of my life here on PBASE. I’ve had many comments about the gallery where people have said I’m:
Brave for being so open
Foolhardy for letting so many personal things out into the ether
Mad for spending so much time doing this
People say that they:
Love an insight into another human being’s life
Feel voyeuristic reading my postings
Would never allow their own hopes and dreams to be shared in so public a way.
You don’t have to worry about how much of me I reveal, I only tell the bits I want heard, there are many private things still in my life. Wearing my heart on my sleeve has always been a key part of me.
My parents and friends all tell me how much they love reading my thoughts – my sister says it goes some way to make up for seeing one-another so rarely and my Mum phoned me at 10.45pm on Friday night to try to find out why I’d not posted that day – she didn’t realise we were out!
What interests and excites me is that the PotD galleries that existed before mine were not diaries, just collections of photos. Since I started in March last year, others have started to reveal things about themselves too. That makes me feel good. It makes me feel like I started something that goes beyond the simple photo.
In general terms, I’m not comfortable with photos of me. I’ve always been basically shy and awkward and that has been even more apparent in front of a camera. I never have liked my photos but that feeling has grown since my youth has drifted away from me. I know you’ve all seen photos of me taken by David, some I’m more happy with than others. I like the one he took in the Thai restaurant at my birthday celebration with Hugh, Colin and Sharon (because my hair is so shiny) and I like the recent one of me with David’s 300d in the garden (because I look like a photographer).
What I really hate though is that one on Jeanne’s links page. Why? Because David tried to recreate a lovely photo taken of me about 20 years ago when I was a very skinny and pretty young thing. Since then I’ve gone ‘the way of all flesh’ and to me the photo just serves as a reminder that I’ll never be young again.
In this photo I have tried to redress all of that. I’ve tried to show you me as I see me. Fiery, feisty and with a glimmer of humour. I hope I achieved what I set out to achieve and I hope you appreciate how painful it has been for me to come up with a portrait that I’m happy with. Oh and no, I’ve not messed with the colour of my hair in PS – it’s a real Leo mane!
Ray – I’ve seen your pic today with a bit of this about it but I hope you believe me when I tell you this was in the process of planning all the way home from work and I only saw your pic just before I put this one into action!
It's taken me a year to pluck up the courage to do this!
POST SCRIPT: Singing 'we've got Ledley at the back!'
