Tag: appreciation

  • the parking validation

    So I draft this from a small Winship Emory Midtown waiting room. I have my coffee from home, my phone, a white robe that has no tie at the waist like it should, and a bag with my tops inside. Jared is waiting in the main lobby. The diagnostic mammogram is done. 

    But at the end… The tech told me she was going to give me validation for my parking.

    I do not know what that meant…. but it does not bode good things.

    I have delivered two children at Emory Midtown — I have probably been here over 50 times in the last 18 years — and they never validated my parking before. 

    I know the ultrasound was an optional follow-up and the tech made out like I’d be having the ultrasound but then she backtracked and said it was pending the doctor looking at the images…

    And now, wistfully, I wait.

    ————————

    And the tech came back for me. We repeated the images, for “spot checks,” on the concerning side.

    I am pretty sure I know what is coming.

    ————————

    I sit and wait. At least six people have come and gone back and left. I texted with Jared a little, telling him I was sure I have breast cancer. Jared says to wait and see what the doctor says. 

    I waited over a month for this diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound. I panicked when the date was so far out and scheduled one at Tanner for October 15, but I ended up having a late-scheduled tele-health appointment with my endocrinologist on the 15th and had to cancel the Tanner appointment. 

    It meant waiting, but honestly if I have to deal with medical complications I am grateful to be dealing with Emory, not Tanner.

    ————————

    The wait on the ultrasound table for the radiologist, after the tech did the ultrasound, was the longest ever.

    Turns out, I am fine. No breast cancer, no problems under my arm at all. They were very thorough. The radiologist herself came in to explain the mammogram was clear, the ultrasound was clear. 

    I probably have a fungal rash (I have been telling Jared since my appointment last week that it is probably ringworm) like the dermatologist thought it might be. The spot is fading with the creams she gave me. I didn’t tell them that this morning though. 

    I still have zero idea why they validated my parking, though. Or why they repeated the mammogram on the concerning spots. At all. Oh well. 

  • better

    Thank you to everyone who reached out after yesterday’s post. I will be okay.

    Today has been better; I still slept in until 9:30 and didn’t get up until nearly 10:30. Jared is gone to a day conference and left about 6:30 this morning but he made sure the boys were up and getting ready and I got up and took my meds and stayed up until the boys left for school.

    One of the BIG bonuses to having a teen driver in the house is that he can take his little brother to school. We ask him to do it as little as possible, but this morning it felt necessary.

    My solitary task for the day, the one non-negotiable, is that I have to get Oliver from school, after school today.

    And I suppose if I’d had to I could have done it in my jammies– or more accurately– the clothes I put on after my shower last night. Most of my clothes double as jammies; one of the bonuses to living in leggings.

    But, when I got up, I came out and got myself some plain greek yogurt and walnuts for breakfast. I sat down at my computer and I did my gratitude list for the first time since October 21. I actually journaled, as opposed to coming straight here to blog.

    Things on the gratitude list for the day:

    — I am grateful it was a Democratic sweep yesterday

    — I am grateful for Abby

    — I am grateful we have plastic to put over the windows because of the cold

    — I am grateful I have the luxury of being bored

    There were 50 things on my list, but you get the idea.

    And then I remembered my Minolta lenses, and went to read a few reviews between the 58mm 1.2 (a lens I used to have and sold) and the 58mm 1.4 (a lens I currently have) and got the lens out and put it on the GFX:

    And obviously, I took a photo of the GFX with the 58mm lens on it, with the X-S20.

    And then I took this photo of Trixie, with the GFX:

    I do love Minolta lenses. And this one works in regular crop, so I don’t have to use the 35mm crop setting on the GFX. See the above photos? They don’t have the same dimensions because the top one is APS-C and the bottom one is medium format.

    And then after poking around online for a while…..I got myself cleaned up. And then I sent this photo to J:

    And along with the photo, I sent this text to J:

    “I cut on my hair so that it is now all close to properly one length; most of the layers including the thin section at the back of my neck are gone. Back to properly chin length but it felt good to give myself a haircut.
    And I got a shower. And now I am about to warm up 3-day old coffee.
    I feel not quite myself, but almost.”

    The hair thing: I desperately want long hair. But my hair is extremely fine, and thinning by the day. So chin-length it may be. Regardless: now that it is all one length, it is so very obvious that my hair definitely needs absolutely not one single solitary layer in it at all. Too thin for that.

    And yes, I do feel almost myself. A pizza is about to go into the oven for Oliver for when he gets home from school, and after I get him I am going to set to work about finishing the plastic-over-the-windows projects in both our bedroom and the living room. There is an awful lot more to do window-wise– the rest of the house– but if I can just get the hole in the plastic Trixie pierced the other day in the living room and the final door in the living room, along with the second window in our bedroom, it will be a successful day. I am determined to get most of this project done before the extreme cold hits next week.

    Tomorrow is the diagnostic mammogram with potential ultrasound. I’m trying hard to not think about it.

    If you’re new here, you can read more about me here.

  • security blanket camera

    Here’s what I don’t talk about with my photography gear…

    Probably half the time I have my gear out, I just hold it, sitting in my lap. Not for pictures…. It is my security blanket.

    I did it last night at the Marina when I snapped the selfie with Jared, with the X-S20.

    This morning on the way out the door to church, I knew I’d want to hold the GFX after we dropped Porter off at UGA this afternoon, so I threw it into my purse. So here it is, now in my lap as Jared drives us back home to Carrollton.

    I’m sure I’m not the only person in the world with security blanket-type object.

    It’s just that mine have doubled as professional and hobby-type tools at the same time.

    I’m feeling fairly anxious this week. I stood up for my 18-23 year-old self on Thursday, and also my 45 year-old self as well.

    And then I drove to Athens for my oldest.

    And I spent a good portion of the weekend hiding. Because that is what I do.

    And I’m probably going to spend some more time in the next few weeks hiding while I try to get my mental health back in some semblance of equilibrium.

    I’ve lost my laundry routine since before October 20.

    Dishes sit undone for days on end.

    It’s been rough.

    I’m determined to turn a corner, but for now, I hide.

    And I hold my security blankets: my cameras.

    Read more about me here.

  • “you are safe”

    I love my husband.

    Jared says I have been less afraid of him this year; that I am making progress.

    He says for years in the 2010s to the early 2020s I flinched, as in actually jumped, whenever Jared reached out to touch me.

    Jared says it hurt, but he knew it was not him I was reacting to: it was ghosts of the past.

    The body keeps score.

    And even now, my nervous system is highly wired and worn out.

    But I do love my husband, and I am learning to trust the love that he has shown me consistently for 22 years now.

    Trust is hard.

    Trusting men is harder.

    The body keeps score and even with 22 years of careful and tender care, there are confusing outbursts occasionally. It’s hard to remember that my husband is not the enemy sometimes.

    And when my nervous system feels short-circuited due to high alert, the best thing I can do is bury my head in Jared’s chest and let him tell me, without me saying a word, “You are safe.”

    In fact, when I am at my most distressed, Jared takes off his shirt to hold me, telling me I need the contact of his warm skin.

    Jared says, “You are safe,” at the most unexpected times.

    The situation is delicate enough that Jared’s incredible employer lets me hang out with him at work whenever it’s practical.

    Right now, I am drafting this post from the hallway of the press box while Jared is working with the broadcast kids for the Halloween football game tonight.

    Lots of afternoons, when I have been unable to drag myself out of the bed due to despondency, Jared will say, “Come see me,” and when I manage to get cleaned up and out of the house, I just go hang out at his office.

    Jared is truly my safe place.

    How I got so lucky when that man with the online profile “Maxtheape” sent me a message in early July 2003, I will never know.

    I remain convinced that Jared Price saved my life.

  • the reckoning

    It’s been a year.

    Not in the whole chronological sense….I mean, of course I am aware that in general, a year has passed in my life.

    But I mean…. it’s been quite the year, in an emotional journey sense.

    2025 has been hard.

    This has been the year of the financial reckoning. I was burned out and floundering and not doing well mental-health-wise which led me to close down the photography business. But also: the photography business was an unsustainable financial venture, and keeping it open greatly added to our debt every month.

    I’ve been through our budget time and again over the months. We’ve used YNAB for years– since 2012– and all this time, I’ve kept track of where our money goes. It’s just that most of the time, I overlooked credit card spending. I was focusing more on the emotional wants and feeling like I needed to spend both to quell the overwhelming terror and urge to figure something out professionally, but also to stuff the overwhelming sense of boredom in my life.

    And all that messiness came out in gross overspending.

    And so here I am, and it’s the last days of October, and it’s month five of actually attempting to be responsible.

    I spent a grand total of $22.39 this month on nonessential fun stuff for myself. That’s major progress. I bought a couple of skeins of yarn and some more antique resin cameos for necklaces and rings.

    It’s not enough. Not spending is not enough to clean up this mess.

    At this point, if rent were not so astronomical everywhere, if we hadn’t bought our house with a 2.875% interest rate and if the real estate landscape were not pretty atrocious right now, I’d probably be trying to figure out how to get our house on the market, to pay off our debt, because that’s probably going to be the only way out.

    Not an option at the moment. We couldn’t afford to live anywhere else.

    We need more income. I need a job.

    And I’ve sent out tons of applications. I had an interesting offer last week, but the whole operation reeked of shady, and I’ve learned that I have a pretty stellar intuition about people so I said no. It was interesting not in the “this would be a fun job” sense but in the “I’m not sure this is a legal operation” sense.

    At the same time as the financial reckoning, I’ve been seriously working on my mental and emotional health.

    I’ve been facing some long demons head-on.

    It’s not been easy. Progress is not linear.

    I went to bed afraid of someone last night and didn’t sleep well, waking up unable to go back to sleep at 3:45 AM this morning which is why I am drafting this post at 5:30 AM.

    That’s just my life.

    Jared and I have been talking about the what-ifs of life lately.

    Like, what if I ever had to live in this house on my own, without him.

    And Jared is not sure I could do it, because I am so fearful.

    And he’s right– I like to think I wouldn’t have to leave the house to go live with family or someone else, but I don’t even like to turn out the lights in the house for the night by myself.

    My fear is that intense, and it’s always worse at night than during the daytime.

    In the daytime, it’s manageable.

    But at least this morning, I can cry, which is progress.

    Because there are times that I’m so emotionally numb– most of the time, actually– that the tears don’t come.

    And while trying to clean up the financial front of life, I’ve also been attempting to dissect, at the most very basics of levels, the trauma bonds that have kept me in bondage for most of my adult life, since last December.

    It’s been messy, and honestly it’s been a miracle at times that I haven’t landed in a psych ward. That’s all I really care to say about it.

    Except and this morning, I am angry, and I feel hurt, and slightly stupid, and I want retribution that will never come.

    But, I do know this: Karma is a bitch.

    So, I bide my time. And heal what I can, as I can.