She is strong...


Wow, I cannot believe how much has changed in the last month. For those who that are not aware we experienced an apartment fire on May 10th, we lost everything we owned, including all my camera gear and our dear Kali (cat). I'm not going to lie, it's been TOUGH. From the moment I got to the scene and just saw everything on fire I knew from today, on - everything has changed. I feared what was next, where do I go from here. I'm starting completely over, my cat, all our things and my ALL my camera gear. Those were some of thing things that were running through my mind as I saw the wood burning aggressively in front of me. Thankfully, my boyfriend was on his way and my mom was on her way. Had I still worked the weird hours I worked in the past I would have been dead, both our entrances were blocked... we found out later. I just stood there and imagined what that night and the following days would be like. Losing everything in seconds really makes you think. What is important to you, what matters most? That day I found out out how strong I really was. I found out how strong I was when we were told in the Red Cross van that "Go find where to sleep tonight" that they would not help us. Thankfully , we found a motel in a couple towns over that we had to locate and find ourself. It wasn't the best, it had mold on the celling and you had the lock the room with multiple deadbolts. It was a place to sleep that night and that's all that mattered. That is one of the scariest moments of my life. The first night, just me and Eric alone with our thoughts. We held each other close, afraid of what was to come next, we said "I love you's' to our Kali and drifted to sleep. I found out how strong I was when we had to go to Walmart that first night to find clothes, to grab toiletries. You don't know what you really need until you need EVERYTHING. I found out how strong I was when the donations started coming and people I have never met or spoken to had done so much for us. I cried in the motel room one night when the sweetest couple allowed me to use their camera gear until I could get back in my feet. PEOPLE ARE SO KIND. I will say that until the ends of the earth. You don't realize the love that exists in this world until you have something like this happen. I am so lucky that people stepped up in my time of need, I don't know what would have happened had we not had the support. I do know it would be harder than it currently is. It is currently a month later as I write this and we have dealt with so so much but we are safe. We are healthy. We have each other.


There is something else that we have not told anyone except our parents, we moved. We moved out of state for a lot of reasons. One of the first being we loved the area we found our apartment from the moment we stepped onto the city years ago. We wanted to move up here in 2023, we started the process of moving clients, finding jobs for Eric and establishing a base up in New Hampshire. The fire happened and we were starting out completely fresh, when I mean fresh I mean we really only had clothes donated to us. Why not? Why not now? We took a jump and found the most beautiful home in Portsmouth NH. We are 10 mins from the water and the river out our backdoor leads to the ocean. We live near the ocean. I've dreamed of this my entire life. We live near 15 mins away from my childhood vacation spot. We love it here, its so so beautiful. We are happy. I try to look at life as everything happens for a reason, and that even though it is the worst possible thing that can happen to someone, we are stronger because this happened to us, we are closer. We try not to have angry thoughts on our amazing stupid neighbor who threw his cigarette into a flower pot, but we are still working on that. We will come back stronger, and I will build my business back stronger. I love what I do, watch me raise from the ashes, literally.

-Stephanie