One Second a day - How a video diary can Prove you’re not wasting Your life
For the last few years, around NYD time, I have found myself annoyed that I am once again glued to a friend’s ‘1 Second a Day for a Year’. Disappointed I forgot to give it a go myself; frustrated that it looks like a faff.
In 2023 however, I was made aware that it’s an app that facilitates this aesthetically pleasing tracking of the passage of time. An app that was easy to use. The friend who had repeatedly drawn my internal ire graciously showed me how to use it, and I was away. Unlike my gym membership, this habit did not go by the wayside, by the end of the year I had my own reel to share.
But, it wasn’t the sharing that motivated me. In fact, I haven’t managed to share the whole thing before, I don’t want a highlight reel for others. The 1SE app helped me achieve something of consequence for my own self-esteem, it proved I’m not squandering my days.
As I uploaded and mashed together my daily snippets, it was also clear that my life is not the refrain of unchanging circumstances.
Capturing just a fleeting second (or 1.5 seconds) each day may seem trivial, but those brief clips were akin to strokes on a canvas to me; storing moments of beauty, effort, and intention that I would have otherwise forgotten. The simplicity of the concept belies the transformative power – a tool that alters perception without altering the text. I need that more than ever right now - I don’t want to feel like a fraud in my own life, when I try to steer conversations to more positive things, I want to know I’m living those things too, I’m not masking, just redirecting the focus.
This is what I noticed when I looked back on a year in my own life via these micro snippets:
I appreciate flowers, trees, bodies of water, ducks and dogs. I got outside more than I had realised just to be among these things.
Despite the fact I hate cooking, Carly and I learned how to make biscuits and we gifted them on at least 4 different occasions. The videos don’t show how I also got hopping mad nearly every time, as they took double the time the book said, or that I was late to every social engagement where I’d wanted to take them - but the point stands, I had entirely forgotten how I persisted with this undertaking even though it was rarely gratifying! It was satisfying to see myself in that light, I often feel like I’ve lost a lot of resilience as I get older, but being a bad baker in a world where it’s easy to just buy a gift that tastes good, and continuing to attempt to make it with love instead, that’s a good marker I’m still the woman I wanted to be when I was younger and had more time and energy! It’s not all about the execution.
I went on The Chase - My episode finally aired exactly a year after filming, last week. I didn’t win, but it was a great day out, and I’ll wear it as a badge of honour that Bradley Walsh had to pause filming to recover from laughing at me
While I was hardly going to forget that I joined Bridgend Roller Derby, seeing my smile grow did cause my chest to catch. Despite being criminally unfit and adamant I wouldn’t be interested in playing games until at least 2024, if at all, by August I stepped in for a game against Wiltshire when we were short, and by the end of the year had supported a vote to compete in the 5 Nations tournament this year. At 38, a full contact sport, after a 5 year absence, is a huge undertaking. But, I’ve gone from having nervous snakes in my stomach all the way to training to crushing devastation when I had to miss a session because I had surgery! Change creeps up on you, and this reminder is timely.
Black Pack - Five Nations Tournament, Bridgend Vs Dorset Roller Gulls
I got employment with both The Talking Shop and Storyopolis, to make sure I still had my hand in the creative industries. I spent a third of my annual leave working in these additional roles, and while I don’t wish to repeat that, (working a 6 day week is bad enough without losing annual leave too) it connected me with other creatives in the South Wales Valleys and my exposition of my experience with The Talking Shop was published by Wales Arts Review.
I finally came good on my promise to visit Kate in Canada, and took myself to Seattle for 3 days to explore alone first. I walked for hours and hours and followed my curiosity all over the city.
While I was in Seattle, on a whim, I visited the Museum of Museums, because it was hosting a new exhibition coinciding with Pride weekend, where the artist (Jessica Marie Mercy) was sharing an, "exploration of queer femme identity, conveyed through the expressive language of clay."
I’d been having trouble with my phone and needed to ask one of the staff about the location of my next stop before I departed, we got chatting, and he asked me if I'd seen the rest of the museum yet; I hadn't. He rang upstairs and told the woman working the front desk he was buying my entry and she should introduce me to the gallery. Her and I chatted about our preferred mediums, then I wandered.
When I got upstairs, I spent a long time in the Emily Counts - Sea of Vapours - exhibition. It's nothing I'd normally like, but she did a stellar job of explaining the concept and it drew me into her world and point of view entirely. I wanted to linger in the warmth and comfort of her narrative and I ended up speaking to Sam, another member of staff, and we swapped observations about the art, our interpretations, and a lot of other sparky things. It is the friendliest reception I've ever had in a space like that, and I've been to hundreds of them across the world. This snippet was powerful because it shows me I can find, visit, and enjoy these spaces alone - it’s not other people propelling me towards finding interactions like this, I choose them.
People are kind when you view them this way, you suddenly really see the patterns in the regularity of reliable friendships, and the reciprocal joy on the faces of more far flung friends that punctuate the grind with less frequency but greater ardour. My greatest achievement of last year was my fairy godson being more excited to see me than he was about Father Christmas - I might need that written on my headstone - Kelly Keegan 1984 - ???? “More exciting than Father Christmas”
My 1SE video of 2023
In a world filled with uncertainties and the constant pursuit of meaning, the 1SE app offers a unique perspective. It's a silent rebellion against the grind of monotony and the uneasy fear that you’re living a life where nothing seems to happen.
In the fellowship of self-discovery, the 1SE app becomes a companion, a tangible testament to efforts - I am proud to have charted those efforts.
Let me know which of the clips you like the most, find funniest, or have questions about.
