Wish you were here.

 I have been playing with another new editing program I found at Plotaverse. Within the Plotaverse, there are several apps to play with, but I have really had fun with Plotagraph. It allows you to take a single still image and edit motion into it. The app takes some practice to get smooth images, but with less than a day of playing I have some up with some pretty cool results. Being a photographer, I'm not sure what I plan on doing with these mp4 movie files other than post them on all my social media outlets, but are really interesting and fun to play with. Here is a short video by the talented Trey Ratcliff with Kelby One showing what is possible with Plotagraph. Kelby one is great place to learn all things photography. I have found it is very much worth paying the monthly fee for Kelby, at least long enough to learn what you need.

Here are a couple of my Plotagraphs, along with the original photos. There is no sound with these since they were not recorded as a video but as a single image. One could certainly add a soundtrack through different software though.

Enjoy, and if you decide to make some of your own Plotagraphs, share them with me. I'd like to see your creativity.

I ask an important question tonight? Why is mental health so hard to talk about? Even with our own friends and family? We just turn the tv so we don't have to think about what our internal voices are screaming to us, for one hour at a time, unless we are binging, then it can be for days, weeks or months at a time.

This is part of why I haven't been on here. So I am saying now. I have really been struggling with the loss of my mother a year and a half ago. My inner voice screams at the top of its lungs that it wants something else. I want to be somewhere other than where I am, and have for a very, very long time. I don't want to be here. I don't want to scare anyone with that last statement. These are not suicidal thoughts in any way. It is more of a caged animal needing to escape. I feel trapped and cornered. So I binge tv to escape my own thoughts. Game of Thrones has been great for this.

A big part of the trap is not hurting the ones you love when breaking down the walls. Even typing this tonight feels like a big betrayal. How do you tell your loved ones that you feel this way without them feeling betrayed. It's not them that is the problem. It is living in a place that I hate with every fiber of my being. I hate this fucking place. I hate the weather, I hate the city, I hate the suburbs, I hate the landscape, I hate the political stupidity of this state (which can be anywhere). But, I stay because it would crush the ones I care about for me to leave. I feel like I have been just buying my time until we can all move away, which is still years away. This is not fair to my wife. So we don't talk about it. We watch the next episode. I stay here for her and I do give her all I can. She knows I struggle with this.

Knowing that my mother died at the young age of 63 of cancer, makes me not want to wait any longer in life before I start doing what I want to do. Life is too short. Next episode. Stop thinking about it.

Where do you start? Does talking to a therapist help. I know what I want or need, I just choose to stuff it down because that is what has to happen for me to keep the family together. I don't even really want to talk to a therapist. I don't see how telling someone about the position I am in can make the reality any different. I am here, in a cage or I leave and hurt the family. Next season. Hulu is great!

So why is mental health so hard to talk about? Truth is, I will probably delete this post sometime soon. No one wants to hear a poor me story. I think I'll just go to bed.

Here is a picture. Keep sharing. One more step, one more step, one more step. Keep moving.