I’m currently writing this post while standing in the server alley at my restaurant/bar job. This is just one of my three jobs and I don’t have a whole lot of spare time. I work a 9-5 job, Monday through Friday. I work here at this restaurant Saturday through Tuesday. This means I work seven days a week and on Mondays and Tuesdays, I work 14 or so hours. With any extra time, I work on growing my photography business. This means standing in this very alley answering client emails. It means bringing my personal laptop to my day job to edit my latest photo session on my lunch break. It means late nights and early mornings. It means taking a Friday off my day job and a weekend off the restaurant to travel for weddings and editing during the week when I can.

This is my season of hustle. And it’s so worth it. This is worth every early morning alarm and late night editing session. Every six hour drive to meet with a new client and six hours back. Not seeing my long distance boyfriend since July. It’s hard. Really hard. I’m completely exhausted but this will all be worth it when I can look back and say, “Look what I have now because of the work I put in then.”

I’m very lucky. I have a whole community of people pushing me forward. I have people at both jobs who believe in not only me, but my work. I have a boss at my day job who bends over backwards to support my business, even if that means working a little less there. I have coworkers and friends at this restaurant who are booking me themselves because they believe in me, my work, and want to be a part of my success story.

I’m not writing this in search of praise. I’m writing this to share the honest truth behind what you see on social media. I would LOVE to one day share my story of how I hustled hard and made it, but why should I wait until the unglamorous part is over?

This is my life right now and I’m so proud of where I’m at in it. I am even more proud to know that where I am right now will be something I look back on a year from now to see how far I’ve grown. And the year after that. I’m not afraid of hard work and sacrifices. This is my life and I have every intention of being proud of where I’m at, no matter what it looks like.

-Taylor

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