Rebecca Barray | Rebecca Barray – Writer/Photographer

Unique

I like to think I’m quite unique.

I used to do scientific research. I was thinking and coming up with ideas that, possibly, no one else had thought of. I felt like I was making a contribution to the world that no one else could duplicate, because no one thought exactly the same way as I did or looked at problems in exactly the same way. That made me fairly unique.

Now, I’m a stay at home mom. I spend my days with two toddlers that I brought into this world. With their specific combination of DNA, some from me and some from my husband, they are definitely one of a kind. And I’m the only one in the world that could make them exactly what they are. That makes me especially unique.

And a photographer. I like to think that I can take my camera and capture a perfectly unique image. I can look through my viewfinder and see things in a way that, maybe, no one else would think to choose. Or maybe I can pick up my camera and capture a moment in time that no one else in the world could possibly have seen it if I hadn’t snapped a photo. That makes me somewhat unique.

And a writer. When I sit down and write, which is not as often as I’d like, I put words together in a way that is uniquely my own. A million people in the world could sit down and write about the exact same topic and not use the exact combination of words that I can. That certainly makes me rather unique.

But it’s all these things together (biologist, mother, photographer, and writer) that make me the absolutely unique person sitting at my computer, typing these words right now.

How do you define yourself? What makes you unique? I’d love to know.