Is she hiding?

I’ve known for a while that I’ve needed some updated photos for various “professional reasons”, and I asked someone for some help because I felt I needed to make it happen Now and I couldn’t do it Alone.
We got some of those sort of photos too.

This one though.
I was drawn to this one right away.
“That’s me!”
Hiding.
But not hiding, just not showing either.
Touching my face, because my face needs to be touched. My eyes shielded. My fingertips carefully measuring pressure. Showing myself care.
I wanted photos to connect with others, but my favourite photo of all was me connecting with myself.
Intimate for one moment, with me showing up for me.

Reminding myself, first. To show up for me, first.

How often do I look this way? Do I appear to others to be the frazzled mother? The burnt out creative? The tense achiever? Do I look like I have had enough? Do I look like it’s all too much?
Do I look like I can handle it? Am I making someone uncomfortable by appearing uncomfortable? Do I seem ungrateful? Will people think I’m struggling more than I’m actually struggling? Will people think I’m hurting less than I’m actually hurting? Will people think that I thought too much about this?

I didn’t think those thoughts though, at first. I was more like, aye, there she is. Taking care of her head again.