A relationship I'd like to mend

Now that I've said A, and started the #HiveBloPoMo, I have to say B too. For today @traciyork had an idea to talk about a relationship you would like to mend. And when I saw that, my first thought was, "Pffwww, that's not something I want to talk about". A relationship that you would like to fix means that you actually really miss that relationship, and that's not really the nicest thing to talk about, is it? Then I thought to talk about the relationship I had with my camera, and how much I want to restore it. But that would be lame, so I decided to tell you about a certain relationship that I would like to restore if I had the chance. Although I think this will never really be possible again, and if the relationship is even somewhat restored, it would never be the same as it was before. We have changed too much for that, and too much time has passed. Time in which I had to accept that the friendship is no longer there, and will not come back.

Travel back in time

Let's go back in time to the year 2008. That's the year I bought Rowan, and with him by my side, I struggled out of that deep depression I've written about before. Because I wanted to be the best owner ever for Rowan, I searched daily for tips on raising puppies, and that's how I ended up on a dogs forum. A forum with all dog owners who gave each other tips, but also told each other nice stories about their dogs, and where photos of the dogs were shared. Needless to say, it didn't take me long to establish myself on the forum, and I proudly posted one photo after another of Rowan, but also of Micky and Myla.

We met through a dogs forum

Soon nice online contacts arose and one of those contacts was with a woman who had 5 dogs together with her son, and who also lived fairly close to me. We decided to meet in person and we hit it off right away. We had many common interests, of course. Both she and I both had shepherds, and we both loved photographing those shepherds. That first meeting quickly turned into a very good friendship and together we went for long walks with our dogs and took the most beautiful pictures. There were also the days when we left our dogs at home and went out together to zoos to photograph. We drove all over the Netherlands to other members of the forum where we had met to photograph the dogs of other forum members. And once we had researched Myla's pedigree and discovered that she came from real KNPV parents, we started looking for more information about that. She was well known in that world, it was all new to me, but I soon learned to find my way there too and together we made new friends there. On KNPV practice days, we went there all day as 'official photographers' to take pictures. And another highlight of our friendship, which shows how much our friendship revolved around photography and dogs, was when me and my sister went on holiday to Germany with her and her son, and all our nine dogs. Those were fantastic times that I look back on fondly.

Changing circumstances and lives

But times change. Lives change, and circumstances change. And that is what has unfortunately caused the friendship between her and me to die. It's been about 8 years now since we last spoke, and if I'm honest, I still miss her. If I ever wanted to restore a friendship, it would be this one.

Hard to swallow

It's always hard to accept when something so important in your life falls away, but after so many years I can't help but accept that it will never be that way again. It was very difficult to accept that, it didn't just happen. It also hurt me a lot, and sometimes still does. I miss the times when we went out with our dogs and took the most beautiful pictures. I miss the days when we went out without dogs to shoot, I miss laughing at funny moments, and oh… those funny moments were many. We often doubled over with laughter. I miss sharing our passion for photography. I miss the friendship we shared. I miss her.

The smile of remembrance

I know this friendship will never recover, circumstances have changed too much for that, I have changed too much for that in all the years since we last saw each other. But the memories of when we shared this friendship, yes they make me smile and wish I could turn back time to 2008. I would do it all again in a heartbeat!

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