Jared and I got in a fight today. And the content or reason is not important, nor is how it resolved other than to say that it is over now.
In the process, though, I found out something that reminded me of why Jared is my hero:
Before my October meeting with the man-who-shall-not-be-named, Jared sent said person a message demanding respect for me during said meeting.
Jared never told me a word about it, until the heat of the moment today, when I accused him of never standing up for me against said individual.
And that specific knowledge goes a long way toward both healing last December, and also making me feel very, very, very safe with my husband. It also rather dramatically explains that while verbal harassment occurred in October, physical boundaries were observed.
I’ve long known that Jared will go to bat, at great length, for me.
But knowing that he warned this particular individual as to protecting my safety, regardless of what actually happened, I am certain went a long way toward ensuring at least physical boundaries were observed.
I love my husband. Emotional and physical safety and protection are just two more reasons why. Indeed, they are the whole reason I chose Jared 22 years ago, when presented between the choice of the two of them.
I am aware that most of the time in writing at least, I am the bringer of doom-and-gloom.
Today, though, I am grateful.
I have a gratitude practice that I do most days in my journal app. I just don’t publish it because most of the time it has things that I wouldn’t necessarily want the world to know.
Here’s today’s gratitude list:
I am grateful for Jared.
I am grateful for my marriage to Jared.
I am grateful for Porter.
I am grateful for Liam.
I am grateful for Oliver.
I am grateful for Abby.
I am grateful for Trixie.
I am grateful for Mow.
I am grateful for Nancy.
I am grateful for Bess.
I am grateful for my side of the family.
I am grateful for Jared’s side of the family.
I am grateful Jared has a good job.
I am grateful our kids are getting stellar education.
I am grateful Porter has a safe place to live in Athens.
I am grateful Liam got into UGA.
I am grateful Oliver had such a good time doing the play, “Oliver” at school.
I am grateful that all three of our children are healthy.
I am grateful that we have a home.
I am grateful that we have a nice home.
I am grateful that we have reliable transportation.
I am grateful that Jared and the boys helped me clean up our house yesterday.
I am grateful we are all physically able to clean and do household chores.
I am grateful we have enough to eat.
I am grateful for good friends.
I am grateful for our church family.
I am grateful to be a photographer.
I am grateful to like to write.
I am grateful to be learning to leave the past in the past.
I am grateful we can pay our bills.
I am grateful that I am learning to like living in Carrollton more.
I am grateful Porter and Liam have their driver’s licenses.
I am grateful Porter and Liam are good drivers.
I am grateful to be having Costco deli Mac and cheese for lunch today.
I am grateful to be alive.
I am grateful to be 46 years old.
I am grateful to have learned a lot about caring for my mental health over my adult lifetime.
I am grateful for healing.
I am grateful for time alone to think.
I am grateful to have been married to Jared for 20 years.
I am grateful for good choices.
I am grateful for a good night’s sleep.
I am grateful that my whole family has enough clothes to wear.
I am grateful for my education.
I am grateful for appreciating history: my own, my family’s, and the broader world.
I am grateful I was a religious studies major.
I am grateful it’s not too late.
I am grateful for my life.
I am grateful for love.
I am grateful that today is a good day.
And with that, I am going to focus on today, today.
I don’t take photos like this very often. But as I draft this post it is 11:18 AM and I am eating my favorite kind of Kirkland protein bar in the bed. Because it is that kind of morning.
And as it happens, I went to bed in the most awfully despondent kind of mood last night. The kind where I become uber dramatic and morose about the future; I will not repeat what was said.
It was the kind of morning where I did not set an alarm; Jared woke me up long after he’d woken the boys up, to get me to take my morning medicines. He knew he had to do this because if he did not, I might or might not actually take said medications (note: it was my thyroid meds so the likelihood of me taking them was high. But still).
And because Jared loves me and spoils me rotten, for breakfast because he knew comfort foods were in order, he brought me a baggie of Cheez-It’s and my favorite Kirkland Chocolate and Peanut Butter Protein Bar.
And I promptly fell back asleep until after 10 AM.
Because it’s difficult to maintain hope right now.
But, I do have two goals for today:
finish the stitching on my newest jute bag’s liner
Get my jewelry collection back in order, because it is in the kind of embarrassing state that does not reflect my feelings about it.
That’s true, actually, about our house and my body, too; both are in the kind of embarrassing state that does not reflect my feelings about either of them.
Jared told me, as he frequently does, to “be kind to yourself” before he left.
So that’s today’s goal. Even if today is starting at 11:28 AM.
On Sunday evening, October 19, I threw in a load of laundry. I knew I’d be busy on dedicated laundry day, Monday the 20th, so I was trying to get ahead so my whole routine wouldn’t be blown to smithereens.
I was fooling myself. Not because the premise of the idea wasn’t good, but because Monday the 20th threw me into a whirlwind of emotions I can only tangentially talk about at the moment. Mostly self-destructive despair and self-loathing.
I think I actually did a load of laundry on the 20th, or I actually switched the laundry, early that morning.
And, maybe three loads of laundry have gotten done since then. Maybe four.
Monday is still laundry day. But, I am starting laundry day today, on Saturday, so that maybe laundry day will be done by Tuesday or early Wednesday– we have that much laundry. If I finish it on Monday, all the better but I am not holding my breath.
Dana K. White from A Slob Comes Clean was the first person who I listened to about laundry day. My aunt said years ago she tried to tell me once it would be easier to just have a laundry day when the boys were little, but I have no memory of that.
But, Dana says that a first laundry day, in no way, is likely to be only one day if you have an actual family you are doing laundry for.
And in my experience, she’s 100% right.
So, here I am, it’s 12:46 PM on Saturday November 8, 2025, and I am started Monday’s the 10th’s laundry day at 11:30 this morning.
Because I was doing pretty good before the 20th. And I feel pretty good this morning, aside from feeling like my routine is gone to crap.
And, this afternoon, there is a maternity session and it is exclusively a Cinelux lens maternity session. I am taking along the Minolta lens just in case I need it, but I don’t anticipate needing it. A former bride approached me about maternity photos several months ago, about the time I was shutting down the business and sold the bulk of my lenses, and I turned them down. But I reached out later and showed her some of the photos with the lenses and told her it wouldn’t be a typical session but that I was willing to do it for free if I could use these lenses and use them for my portfolio, and she agreed. So here we are, and it is a beautiful day with perfect weather, and I get to have a Cinelux session.
The idea was that if the photos turned out, I might decide to take on limited Cinelux sessions in the future.
I already used this lens once in a session, a few years ago now. I just chickened out and got complacent with my autofocus lenses.
I forgot to slow down and enjoy photography.
And, for the occasion, I downloaded again the UnScripted app, my posing Bible I used for so very long. I am very excited about the poses I found.
Eight years in, I no longer feel any shame whatsoever in the fact that coming up with natural poses on my own is no, in fact, natural for me.
But, I found the UnScripted app when it was first barely out of beta, brand new, years ago and it has served me very well. I paid for a lifetime membership around 2020 in fact, when it was dirt cheap– definitely not what it is now. It was probably 1/5 of what it is now — at $499– or else I wouldn’t have paid for it at all.
Looking back on this week: there were nerves about the potential health scare. There was leftover fallout from meeting with someone I shouldn’t have on October 20. There was fallout from having told that person exactly what I think of them in writing since apparently I am incapable of doing so to their face though at least I can, indeed, face them. But, also: the time change hit me really, really hard, really, really suddenly.
I do not do well with limited daylight hours. Which is why I use a light therapy lamp to begin with.
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.
