A Fall Leaves Shoot
- only a year late -

Thursday, September 30, 2021

Last fall, on a warmer day between Halloween and Christmas, Marion and I headed out to clean the leaves from the front porch, and rake the front yard. I love the leaves, but the snow is more fun without them, and it helps the grass, too. I knew there was going to be leaf jumping fun, and as I finished up and she was preparing to jump in the pile, I yelled, "Wait! Let me get my camera!" She patiently waited, and then had a blast while I fired away.

We got some really fun shots!









The pure joy on her face... I can't help but smile at these. 

I guess sometimes I feel like constantly taking photos hinders me doing and being with her, but in these cases, it just made the whole thing more fun, and she often now is happy to let me do sessions with her because she recognises how much I love it. She is also starting to get to the point where she really loves looking back at photos, and is thinking about that more often, though not nearly as much as me. 
 





Forever torn between black and white or colour...sometimes you just need both. 
 





I'm so happy I ran inside and got my camera that day. I have such vivid memories of this, as simple as it is, but I know that without the photos it wouldn't be near as bold in my mind.

I wish I had gotten these edited sooner, but that's okay. Just in time to look back on some fun from last year, and be able to excitedly look to what fun we have coming in the next couple of months!

Episodes

Tuesday, September 21, 2021

After discussing a new series in life, or specifically about how I've been doing so well, I had a bipolar episode.

As usual, I didn't immediately notice it. I just woke up and didn't feel so great. 

"It's just a rough day," I thought.

But it continued.

"I'm just stressed. I need to chill," I thought.

So I chilled, but still it persisted. 

I determined it really seemed like severe anxiety, and labelled it that. 

After about a week of this, I woke up on Thursday, and it was gone. 

My episodes always go like this. Like something resets overnight, and I will wake up in this unpleasant episode, and no amount of anything will shake me out of it until I just randomly wake up better. 

I think I had realised it near the end. I felt the explosiveness rising up in me, like my body wasn't going to contain it any longer, and then...it was gone the next morning. 

It's sometimes hard to talk about feeling like I'm doing better, because then I have an episode, and I feel like a liar, or like I was being untruthful, or trying to put on a façade. In reality though, this is being bipolar. You can be doing better and still have an episode, and then come out of it where you were. It took me a long time to realise that this is not linear. An episode isn't steps back that I have to catch up on when I pull out of it. I can stumble off the side, and return right back to the path. I'm just starting to learn this and fully embrace it, and I'm not sure why it's a concept, or rather a fact, that I struggle so heavily with. Perhaps it's my unrealistic expectations for myself, or maybe it's simply fear, for the times I did take a heavy step back.

I do know this was triggered by stress.

I received a promotion in July, and then took over additional responsibilities in August, and then Marion started school in October, so my time and schedule has changed drastically. It was a good time, because I was mentally and emotionally well, it was a slow season for work, so it was the perfect time to transition. School, however, threw me for a loop. I suddenly needed an extra five to six hours out of my day, and that left no time for housework, no time for fun or relaxing for me, barely time to breathe. I exhausted myself horribly, I was in tears almost daily trying to figure out how in the world I could find time for everything and fit it in, and it wasn't working. Queue the breakdown. 

I came out of my episode, though, just in time for a trip to visit family. And it kind of came at the worst time, but I couldn't have known when I planned it. Between recovering from a week and a half of severe anxiety, and a major project that popped up at work, I have not sufficiently rested. Thursday and Friday was full of work catch up and preparing and packing for our trip, Saturday was all driving, and I've been going in some capacity since we arrived. I had hoped to get some rest, be able to do some drawing or reading, some photo editing, etc. I am getting this time to sit and write, mostly because I have a headache, I'm really tired, and I can't sleep, and I was having trouble focusing on doing anything else. It's really nice though that writing this has brought me some focus. Maybe this is what I should be doing more. I always want to write, but I end up just coming up with it in my head, and once I've completed the segment, it's gone. 

But, this has brought me some focus, so maybe, just maybe, I can work on some things now, since I can't sleep anyways. I have a photo session to finish editing and post (and it's really almost done), some western sunflowers to practice for my horse drawing, more Longmire to read, and of course getting some of my work project done wouldn't be a bad idea either. 

I always feel I need to close with something thought-provoking, but it's not my style.

The Closing of a Series and Beginning of a New One
Or Something Like That

Thursday, September 2, 2021

I keep feeling like I should shove down my dreams, like I have so often, since I was a child even.

Interests.

Hopes.

It would be easy to do, it’s familiar. Like my time is over, it’s a waste, it doesn’t make sense, it’s too late, there’s no point.

It’s too hard. There are too many pieces.

But I can think of so many times where I did something I didn’t think I could do, figured out something I didn’t think I could, did something really hard.

I didn’t always do it.

I mean, I have a ton of college credit, and only one degree, so I didn’t do that.

But when you have to nail down that, “I want to be” question, and it’s supposed to end with some general career choice, well, that never set right with me, that one I just couldn’t do.

But with a lot of things, I did it. And here I am.

Something has changed in me again. It’s always hard to pinpoint when, as I back up I can mark so many places something was changing. I have been through a lot, a lot of things have changed me deeply.

I first saw a psychiatrist when I was 21. One of the first questions he asked me was, “What is your goal for treatment?”

“To not need treatment,” I answered.

He chuckled and I guess he knew what kind of patient he was accepting, then.

I have been unmedicated since three weeks before Marion was born.

I haven’t seen a psychiatrist since she was three months old. It wasn’t really by choice, but that’s just how it was.

Bipolar changes are a bit easier for me to pinpoint and nail down. It started in October of last year, but only for about a week.

Then in December, it was a slingshot. It shifted, and I knew it the moment it happened. I literally woke from sleep and could feel it.

I have been a different person since then. “More normal” is how I would put it. I haven’t had a truly depressing cycle since before October. I have, perhaps, had more mania/hypomania, but nothing beyond my control. I’m still working on the difference between simply ME and my mania, it’s a fine line a lot of times.

I kept waiting on the spring depression to come.

It didn’t.

The summer depression.

It didn’t.

As we head into fall, I’m feeling like an even more joyful and normal version of myself.

I’ve worked through some trauma (I can listen to country music now, I just don’t prefer most of it).

I’m feeling more worthy of life in general.

I feel important.

Which brings me to: why the heck would I shove down my dreams?

I feel more like jumping in with both feet.

I’m working harder for what I want, and enjoying that.

And I’m also remembering what my psychiatrist said when I answered his question, “That’s ambitious. It’s also not reasonable.”

He was totally, 100% correct, by the way. It wasn’t reasonable.

But that’s not my point.

In the past six to seven years I have constantly felt like I could be living such a better life if I was able to get back on track with my medications. If I was able to see a psychiatrist again. I thought life would be so much easier for me, because most of the time I am struggling through every moment of every day. I wonder if Marion would have a better life. If Ryan would. If Everest would. I guilt myself into thinking I’m ruining their lives, and they deserve someone more normal.

It’s false.

I have felt like a little more of that “normal” person lately. Which is a big improvement over the medicated me.

(But let’s be honest, I’m far from normal and I always will be.)

I see more of the “me in my head” in my actions.

I smile even more (and I improved on that four years ago, and recently noticed the change in my photos).

My expressions aren’t so suppressed.

It’s truly lovely.

So…

It’s been super, super hard, but after 12 years, here I am. I can check that goal off the list.

(I’ll also mention here that this goal requires continual maintenance, so it’s not a done deal.)

It was ambitious.

It wasn’t reasonable.

And now I ask myself again if I should shove aside my dreams and interests, and hopes in life.

Not a shred of me will say yes.

A resounding NO.

Sometimes it’s good to say no.