June in Photos

I've always wanted to do a 365 photo a day challenge, but I can just never stick to it. I somehow managed to do an entire year of One Second Everyday in 2022, but snapping a photo always alludes me. I really want to give it a try though, and I felt inspired after seeing someone else's 365 on Flickr. Something about viewing their photos really clicked for me, in how it gave an impression of the man and told a story of his life. I think when you do a photo a day it can be hard not to make it into some kind of vanity project and let your ego take over to try and make each day look a certain way or project a certain image, and looking at this man’s photos showed me how much power there is in the simple everyday, and how honest that is. It also gets me using my camera, a habit I'm trying to get more into. I'm always scared to take my camera places, and I'd like to lose that fear.

I haven't managed to be as consistent as I may have liked (and I had an SD card corrupt on top of that!) but here is my June. I hope to do one of these posts to wrap up each month, however much I capture of it.

Lose themselves in other times

One of my favourite hobbies is going to antiques malls, and I always like to take photos of the things I see there. It helps stop me from wanting to buy every cool thing I see if I can just take a picture to remember it instead, inspired by the Snufkin quote: "But that's how it is when you start wanting to have things. Now I just look at them, and when I go away I carry them in my head. Then my hands are always free, because I don't have to carry a suitcase." I'm by no means a minimalist, but years of living to and fro abroad has taught me the importance of only owning things that I absolutely treasure.

So I guess you can expect somewhat of a sporadic series of these kinds of posts. Because I go to the same handful of antiques malls it's also fun seeing how the stock changes, and sometimes I take a picture of something only when editing the photo realize that I actually really do want the thing and need to go back ASAP and hope that it's still there!

I love little desk ornaments like this. I can imagine the butterfly letter rack filled with stickers and ephemera, the boar with sewing notions.


I always want to rescue all of the teddy bears ╯︿╰ I also really loved this compact, if you look closely you can see it has coin slots too.


I loved The Adventures of Blinky Bill when I was little, I had no idea it was a book!


I love '60s fashion, I ended up buying the white dress with yellow trim. I love more social history type stuff as well, so I like seeing things like this box of toiletries from a hotel - it's fascinating to me to see how people lived and things they used daily and what was normal to them.

The stars are blazing like rebel diamonds cut out of the sun

The Killers are probably the band that I've liked for the longest at this point in my life, and are very much a comfort band for me. I realised a few months ago that I haven't been to a concert since I saw My Chemical Romance in 2022 which unfortunately was not a positive experience and created a lot of anxiety around going to shows again. Add to that how much money it is and the fact that most of the time I'd rather go to the theatre, but the West End isn't exciting me much at the moment and I hadn't seen The Killers since 2017 so it felt like it was time. And I'm so glad I went! They reminded me of why I've been a fan for so long, they're so incredible live. And I managed to get barrier so I couldn't have had a better view.

I know some people get arsey about people taking photos at concerts, but honestly being neurodivergent I'd forget it all if I didn't as I have so much going on around me to process that I can't always focus on what I should, and having photos to look back on is half the joy of the experience for me (and I do look back on them, frequently!) Unfortunately these photos are not the best despite being front row as I was a little scared to take my Canon G7XII - it's usually fine and what I usually take to concerts, but with this being a brand new venue there wasn't much information to go off of other than the huge list of rules on the website and I didn't want to risk it getting confiscated by security. So these were all on my iPhone.

My journal spreads in my Filofax.

Dream yourself away

I've been in a real funk with social media for the past two years, and honestly I think journaling is the culprit. I love journaling. I've kept planners and recorded my travels in special bound volumes filled with treasures and trash collected from my trips for years, but I didn't begin journaling my everyday life on paper until 2022, and not with any real sense of consistency until 2023. And as much as I love it, I also think in some ways it's ruining my life. Maybe that sounds dramatic, but it's definitely making me lonely and it's something I've felt forced to reassess as I've felt myself becoming more and more disconnected from the world as I drift further and further into my own introspection. And when you constantly write for yourself as your own audience, it becomes harder and harder to then let anyone else in. At what point does introspection just become rumination?

This probably makes it sound like I want to quit journaling, and I don't. I truly find it beneficial. My journal is more of a memory keeper, tracking my special interests, and appreciating the smaller moments, and I love how it helps me to keep track of the time, something that otherwise eludes me. But I need to find a better balance. Talking to no one but myself all of the time has made the prospect of opening up to anyone else too scary.

I love my journals, I love having these little physical records of my life, there is so much satisfaction to be had from flicking through all of your most precious memories and everything that's inspired you in one big book. But I would like to get back into the habit of telling actual people again too, and feeling like part of a community. Because whilst journaling is fun, I don't think it's healthy to be too inside your own head. I've said before that I have no interests in "influencing" or earning any money from social media, I just like having my own little corner and finding like minded people who chose to sit here with me - that's always felt very special. And I feel like growing up it gave me a sense of belonging, and a space to be myself but I feel like I don't really have that any more. The less you post online, the more weight each post seems to carry as if it has to be worth speaking up about and breaking the silence for, and so the harder it becomes to post anything at all. I never used to care so much. I liked oversharing on the internet, and I'd like to get back to that to some degree but I feel like I've lost the art of sharing without over-analysing, a neurotic shell of who I once was. Letting anyone into my world now feels terrifying, especially as I've became more and more depressed. And the more depressed I've felt the less I felt like sharing, which made me more depressed. The most vicious of cycles.

Anyway, I shared these photos of my journal on Tumblr and it unexpectedly absolutely popped off, so I thought I'd share the photos here too, and it felt like a good excuse to articulate these thoughts and get them out of my head as I guess it also plays a big part in why I've decided to start this blog. Maybe it all sounds neurotic to you, and it probably is. I'm just learning to be less insecure about it all.