You guys, I have so much I want to share and I can't pin down a thought and just run with it.
Last week, I went to see my new pulmonologist and THIS GIRL IS OFFICIALLY BLASTO FREE! (insert all the party popper emojis here) No more getting lost in hospitals, no more lab pokes, no more CT scans, no more pink and blue pills to take twice a day... It feels like freedom, like I finally have my life back, and I'm SO grateful.
I've been hustling through the end of my work calendar for 2019. I have one more family session on Friday, two Mini Sessions on Saturday, and then I'm home free. I also had a family session this morning and I can't wait to sit down and start going through photos. I have created so much work this month that I love and this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I can't figure out what to share first haha.
Tomorrow I'm trekking down to Burlington for Thanksgiving, and those aforementioned sessions. My mom has to work tomorrow so we're celebrating on Sunday instead. I'm super excited for some quality time with my favorite people in the world, good food, and rumor has it that I get to jump in on the rolling pin action when my mom makes pie crust this year! I can't even describe the magic that comes from handing down family traditions from generation to generation.
All in all, life is really good. I know I say that a lot, but I still can't get over it. How much good exists in my life and that I have removed myself from toxic situations that were sucking the life force right out of me. 2019 has been an astronomically good year for me and I'm excited to see what the tail end of this year has in store before we welcome 2020 for good.
November 27, 2019
November 20, 2019
times of transition
I'm creating a lot of work that I absolutely love. This season change, as much as it sucks that it gets dark outside at 4:30 PM, is sort of giving me life because golden hour is at 3:30 now... which also means I'm done with work and home by 6 for dinner like a normal person. Perks of working around what time the sun sets? I think so. Transitions, between seasons and between shots when I'm photographing, have always been my favorite. Something comes alive inside me and I always feel so inspired. Riding this wave while it lasts. Life is good.
November 15, 2019
late night brain dump? check.
Shame and guilt have been so ingrained into my entire life. I feel so heavy all the time, weighted down by my experiences and memories and every time I have done something wrong. I just want somewhere to put it down. I'm not an inherently bad person. Writing about my feelings has always been a form of catharsis for me. Getting words down on paper or in this little text box has always been how I deal with the big stuff in my life.
But what happens when words aren't enough?
What happens when words fail and the darkness comes seeping in again and before you know it, it's 5 PM and dark outside and all you can do is lay in bed and stare at the wall and think about shame? What happens then?
I wrote something about my dad, something happy that popped up in my memory bank and I didn't want to forget.
Now all I hear are my mom's words in my head from the last time we fought.
"You don't love me."
"You don't pick me."
"I'm not important to you."
My relationship with my both of my parents has always been a little more than complicated, but it's really hard to not resent my mother for taking away my comfort by making me feel guilty for writing about my dad and not about her. So, she wants me to write about her? Fine. Will do.
I resent her for so much. I know she did the best with what she had at the time, given all the circumstances, but I also can't help but sometimes feel like I'm the one that caused my family to implode and go after each other's throats.
2006. I told my mom what happened with Cody about six weeks after it happened. She asked me if I wanted her to do anything about it and I told her I didn't know. Six months later, she has a breakdown because of her own childhood trauma.
Strike one.
2008. David and I broke up, and Brittany came with me to the family reunion in the same place where everything with Cody happened. Nobody that was there except for Brittany knew what happened between us. I snapped at grandma, lost in my very big sixteen-year-old feelings, and the seed was planted that mom and I abused her.
Strike two.
2011. I came home from college and worked two jobs to support my family because mom got laid off. Grandma used to write me checks for cash every once in a while so I could go to the store for her, and then all of a sudden it was, "You are only taking care of her for the money."
Strike three.
2012 started with my literally bawling my eyes out in an empty camera room at the studio because my family was at each other's throats. Family is supposed to love you, not fucking tear you apart, isn't it? We were all struggling just to put food on the table. I was running myself ragged working three jobs while mom dropped out of school to take care of grandma full time. Nobody helped. Nobody came to see her. And yet we were the bad people, using her for her money and abusing her, right?
When Julio happened, mom was lost in her own depression and I didn't want to upset her even more. So I dealt with it. I kept it a secret and didn't tell her about it for seven years, until one night when we were fighting and she came after Justin and kept saying I didn't love her and I snapped.
When I did finally tell her, breaking down with heavy sobs, the first thing out of her mouth was, "I'm pissed at you that you didn't tell me sooner."
Not "I'm sorry this happened to you, I love you, you're safe," but a statement that makes my trauma all about her.
That same night, same fight, I unpacked the feelings of the night Bruce kicked me out for calling the cops, and she said, "Nobody ever picks me."
I picked her.
Me, scared that he was hurting her because they were on one of their Friday night drinking binges, stood up for her and called the cops trying to protect her out of love because she was the most important person in my life.
And her way of repaying me was to say, "You need to apologize to Bruce" after he had said, "You have thirty days to get out of my house." The house that my grandfather built, that my mother grew up in, that I grew up in. The only house that had ever felt like home to me. I was almost 21 years old and I had been through enough in my life to know that compromising my own emotional stability wasn't an option anymore.
So I left. Much to her dismay, I packed all my stuff and moved three hours away to go live with a boy that she had already expressed she didn't like, and it feels like she will never forgive me for choosing my own happiness and well-being over hers. It feels like she will never forgive me for becoming my own person and setting a boundary that was for my own personal safety.
I used to be terrified to come home from work every Friday night because I never knew what I was coming home to. Was it going to be a good night, where they just came home and watched TV, ordered a pizza and passed out? Or was it going to be a night filled with more alcohol and yelling and screaming? I never knew what I was coming home to and I spent most of my weekends desperately trying to make plans with my friends so I wouldn't have to be home. More often than not, for six very long months, she would make it a point to call me into the kitchen to come hang out with her and would end up telling me how much I'm screwing up my life by making my own choices. How do you respond to that? Internalized resentment and shame, that's how.
I don't know what to do with all of these feelings because I don't go back to therapy for another month, so I will just leave them here and let them be what they will.
But what happens when words aren't enough?
What happens when words fail and the darkness comes seeping in again and before you know it, it's 5 PM and dark outside and all you can do is lay in bed and stare at the wall and think about shame? What happens then?
I wrote something about my dad, something happy that popped up in my memory bank and I didn't want to forget.
Now all I hear are my mom's words in my head from the last time we fought.
"You don't love me."
"You don't pick me."
"I'm not important to you."
My relationship with my both of my parents has always been a little more than complicated, but it's really hard to not resent my mother for taking away my comfort by making me feel guilty for writing about my dad and not about her. So, she wants me to write about her? Fine. Will do.
I resent her for so much. I know she did the best with what she had at the time, given all the circumstances, but I also can't help but sometimes feel like I'm the one that caused my family to implode and go after each other's throats.
2006. I told my mom what happened with Cody about six weeks after it happened. She asked me if I wanted her to do anything about it and I told her I didn't know. Six months later, she has a breakdown because of her own childhood trauma.
Strike one.
2008. David and I broke up, and Brittany came with me to the family reunion in the same place where everything with Cody happened. Nobody that was there except for Brittany knew what happened between us. I snapped at grandma, lost in my very big sixteen-year-old feelings, and the seed was planted that mom and I abused her.
Strike two.
2011. I came home from college and worked two jobs to support my family because mom got laid off. Grandma used to write me checks for cash every once in a while so I could go to the store for her, and then all of a sudden it was, "You are only taking care of her for the money."
Strike three.
2012 started with my literally bawling my eyes out in an empty camera room at the studio because my family was at each other's throats. Family is supposed to love you, not fucking tear you apart, isn't it? We were all struggling just to put food on the table. I was running myself ragged working three jobs while mom dropped out of school to take care of grandma full time. Nobody helped. Nobody came to see her. And yet we were the bad people, using her for her money and abusing her, right?
When Julio happened, mom was lost in her own depression and I didn't want to upset her even more. So I dealt with it. I kept it a secret and didn't tell her about it for seven years, until one night when we were fighting and she came after Justin and kept saying I didn't love her and I snapped.
When I did finally tell her, breaking down with heavy sobs, the first thing out of her mouth was, "I'm pissed at you that you didn't tell me sooner."
Not "I'm sorry this happened to you, I love you, you're safe," but a statement that makes my trauma all about her.
That same night, same fight, I unpacked the feelings of the night Bruce kicked me out for calling the cops, and she said, "Nobody ever picks me."
I picked her.
Me, scared that he was hurting her because they were on one of their Friday night drinking binges, stood up for her and called the cops trying to protect her out of love because she was the most important person in my life.
And her way of repaying me was to say, "You need to apologize to Bruce" after he had said, "You have thirty days to get out of my house." The house that my grandfather built, that my mother grew up in, that I grew up in. The only house that had ever felt like home to me. I was almost 21 years old and I had been through enough in my life to know that compromising my own emotional stability wasn't an option anymore.
So I left. Much to her dismay, I packed all my stuff and moved three hours away to go live with a boy that she had already expressed she didn't like, and it feels like she will never forgive me for choosing my own happiness and well-being over hers. It feels like she will never forgive me for becoming my own person and setting a boundary that was for my own personal safety.
I used to be terrified to come home from work every Friday night because I never knew what I was coming home to. Was it going to be a good night, where they just came home and watched TV, ordered a pizza and passed out? Or was it going to be a night filled with more alcohol and yelling and screaming? I never knew what I was coming home to and I spent most of my weekends desperately trying to make plans with my friends so I wouldn't have to be home. More often than not, for six very long months, she would make it a point to call me into the kitchen to come hang out with her and would end up telling me how much I'm screwing up my life by making my own choices. How do you respond to that? Internalized resentment and shame, that's how.
I don't know what to do with all of these feelings because I don't go back to therapy for another month, so I will just leave them here and let them be what they will.
November 11, 2019
feels like freedom
I started going to therapy again. And then on an impulse, on the last sunny day before winter came in full force, I grabbed my tripod and hopped in my car and went out for some Self-Portrait Therapy. The day I took these, November 5, will always be special to me. It was the last day of my OG 365 project in 2010.
On that day, 9 years later, I went back to my roots. In the words of Maggie Rogers, “I walked off you. And I walked off an old me.” I shook off the flashbacks and the nightmares and the email that came out of nowhere on an otherwise innocent Friday morning. I got in front of my camera at a park I have taken pictures at a million times, and it was like, for 20 minutes, the darkness fell away.
“Shake off the dreams,” my therapist told me. “He doesn’t have that power over you anymore.”
The day after I went to therapy, I had a flashback to a night I’d rather forget. The night when a man asked me if I loved him—a sweet question, right? Not when there’s also a punch to the shoulder blade coming your way when you hesitate, just for a moment. And then you eventually do whimper out a “Yes” because you just want the hitting to stop, and you know that if you tell him what he wants to hear, it will.
And it hit me: that’s not love. It never was. True love, real love, will never be a power struggle. Love worth fighting for will not leave you bruised and broken and frozen in time, reliving these moments over and over again.
Somehow, through all the brokenness, I have found that true love. The one that saves his last Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg form the candy stash for you when you’re stressed and it’s busy season. The one that makes your coffee in the morning when you have to work early. The one that constantly fights for you and your relationship and your love.
I shook off the darkness. I walked off an old me. It was the first day in a very long time that I have felt like myself again. And I hope more of those days are in the future for me.
November 04, 2019
currently, november edition
living in my favorite leggings and all the sweaters
watching grey's and private practice
listening to maggie rogers on a loop
drafting my annual year in review post already
planning out my IG feed for the rest of 2019
working on an engagement session with one of my awesome 2020 couples from the weekend
prepping for my last family session and one last round of mini sessions for 2019
looking at my 2020 schedule and things are gonna get cray around here, y'all
trying to set deadlines and keep myself on track for next year's weddings
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