Coming Back to Life

Hey friends,

It's been a really long time, hasn't it?  Sorry about that, but I've been going through a lot this past year and it's left me unable to deal with a lot of things the way I'd like to, or how a normal person would, much less keep up with a rigid schedule of blogs, social media, and videos.  And I've learned a lot from the experience and wanted to share some of what I've gone through and catch up with you all.

So this time last fall I was starting to feel symptoms of anxiety, I didn't know that's what it was at the time, but I did get around to realizing it in the past few months.  Mostly this left me feeling like I couldn't handle much socially whether that be in person, returning messages to many dear friends, or writing blog posts or doing other things I love.  Some of that's depression too, and as Bryan has said to me before, sometimes it's hard to tell where depression stops and another issue like anxiety pops up.  I thought the anxiety was mostly a side effect from depression, and I tried to do the best I could.  However I found it harder to keep up with everything as the holidays came closer and I started retreating more often.

The same time as all this was going on Bryan and I had been trying to have a baby for about 3 and a half years, completely unsuccessfully.  It had been taking a toll on our relationship and how confident I felt about myself after so much of what is perceived by society as failures.  We'd done tests, tried some medications, and more and nothing helped.  We finally got to a point where we talked to family members about it some and started to talk seriously about adopting while we hadn't quite stopped trying either.  To us it makes more sense to adopt than pouring a lot of money into something like in-vitro fertilization or other techniques which disrupt your life and procedures and hormonal nightmares while still offering no guarantees.  4 years of trying leaves you very stressed and discouraged.  It's enough to cause depression by itself, so in some ways I'm not surprised a bit that I was having trouble.

After the new year started Bryan and I finally had a good talk about things, with lots of tears and coming to a better understanding of how we both felt let down, pressured, and unhappy with each other and the silent expectation we thought we had to live up to, but never feeling like we could acknowledge it properly.  After that conversation we knew it was time to stop trying.  I'd dealt with a lot of pain each month from my periods and was very glad to go back on birth control to manage it.  I've looked into it as we had all the tests for fertility done, and there's a decent possibility the pain is caused by endometriosis, but there's no way to know for sure without surgery.  My doctor doesn't want to resort to that without better reasons than we currently have, which were mostly unexplained infertility and enough pain that I had to go on birth control back in college because otherwise I'd miss classes regularly since no pain killers can help on my worst days.

Around the same time I'd had my yearly physical and had my blood glucose test come back in the pre-diabetic range.  I'd not worried about this too much in the past, but with all the was going on I had gained some weight over the holidays and wasn't in a great place.  I was told to try to be more healthy, and come back for follow up tests in a month or two to assess whether the blood glucose reading was an anomaly or something to worry about.  In some ways this was a wake up call since I do have a family history of diabetes.  Somewhere between the two visits I made the decision that I wanted to be healthier, and was serious about it.

That spring proved to be a very hard time though, and while I did get healthier metabolically I also got sick a lot, several times with stomach bugs, plus the normal cold or two, and between it all I threw my back out horribly.  I didn't really recover from it until mid April, but during that time I did start walking more, because that would help with my back some.  I honestly got so little done at home during that time that it left me feeling very guilty, and I backed away further from friends as I found sitting up to use a computer hurt.  I had started back on birth control in February and found it lifted a lot of my depression, though I still have the occasional bad day it's much less often.  And when I went back for follow up testing things were better!  I had started to change how I thought about eating and pay more attention to my eating habits in general so I'd be more sensible and balanced.

The summer was a bit of a mixed bag as I tried to find some balance between the healthy habits I was trying to make, more going on with family, and trying to deal with things around the house again and contemplating art again after depression led me to abandon it for several years.  Often I felt like I'd take two steps forward and one step back, but things were slowly getting better.

As fall has started I've been dipping my toe into a lot of things, remaking habits to create, socialize, and hopefully run my business again.  I've been doing it all with a much different approach than before, where I tried to do too much, imposing perfectionistic ideals that led to cycles of failure, depression, and self sabotage.  Now when I start something I ask myself a lot more questions about the process with the thought of making sustainable habits, and making myself healthier mentally along the way.

You're probably thinking that's a lot of mental health jargon and not a lot of concrete goals.  But it's been helping me.  I've been tackling the Inktober challenge; it's a trend that started for artists to create an ink drawing each day for the month of October.  I've been taking it with a more forgiving attitude, allowing myself to take more time on some pieces, and get caught up on others.  And sharing these pieces has been getting me back into talking and posting on social media, as well as working on refreshing my Etsy shop to include the new pieces and put more polish on what's already there.  Once I get through with Inktober I'll be working on serious pieces more often too.  Right now I've got one watercolor going to get back into practice.  I do have to admit that putting things down for so long has left me rusty.  On the flip side starting over has given me new ideas and left me feeling more refreshed in many ways than I have in a long time.  I kind of wonder now if what made me stop wasn't just depression, but a bit of burnout too.  In any case, it's good to be back.

I'm not quite sure what that means for what I'll be writing here on the blog, but I hope you'll stick with me as I try to find out.  I know two things though, first off I want to work on projects that leave me feeling satisfied, maybe that means I'll write about fashion some, or art more, or subscription boxes sometimes, I'm almost sure I'll write about books, and probably a lot more.  That overall leads me to my number  two...

Thanks for reading everyone, and until next time.

Books!

Hi folks,

Thanks for all the kind words and responses to my last post.  It really does mean a lot to me as we try to be patient about the timing of having kids.  And I'd be happy to talk to anyone else dealing with infertility; I find it's really important to be able to talk to someone outside of your husband about it, or else feelings can get bottled up.  I tend to find people online through message boards (Babycenter) and other groups, though I'm less involved lately.

Anyway, I've been reading like crazy and have lots of additions to my reading list so far.  I'm up to 10 books finished so far this month, with a half dozen more started.  Apparently I'll be knocking out the 52 on the early side if I keep this up, though in some ways I'm not surprised.  There was a summer around 6th grade when I read nearly 100 books thanks to a fellow library patron who decided to challenge me more than the reading program at the library was.  I feel awful that I don't even know that woman's name, but perhaps soon I'll challenge a young reader myself and make it a tradition!

The books I've added are Injustice: Gods Among Us Volume 1 and Injustice: Gods Among Us Volume 2, which are comics involving the Justice League characters (Batman, Superman, Wonderwoman, etc).  The storyline was written as a prequel to a video game (I didn't know this when I read it or I might have hesitated), but it was so well received as a comic that more volumes are being published to continue the story.  Most of the story revolves around the idea that the superheroes with all their power are nearly gods, and to some people are as one group takes over ruling the earth.  It's really well written and I highly recommend it.

Wildflowers and Plant Communities of the Southern Appalachian Mountains and Piedmont is a great guide to the natural trees, shrubs, and small plants of the south grouped by how they're found in nature.  It was a fantastic read (if you're into plants like me) and I'll be using several of the plants I found in here to craft my garden with.

Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale was a light read, that was fun and a follow up to her first Austenland book, with more of a mystery twist.  These books aren't as well written as the YA books she's known for, but I enjoyed them anyway.

The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country was a book that I had high hoped for, but was mostly disappointed by.  It had a lot of information that wasn't useful to me interspersed with a bit that was.  It read more like a textbook than anything though, making it dull enough that I skimmed it for what was interesting and finished it fast despite it's large size.

Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome by John Scalzi is a prequel to Lock In, and more of a novella than a full book.  It's available to read online for free here, which is how I read it.  I thought it was definitely as good as Lock In, if not better in some ways.  It reads a lot like World War Z by Max Brooks, giving a great historically styled narrative.

So, that's a bit of what I've read in January and I have so much more to update you all on regarding the Pins, but that will have to be in a follow up post.  If nothing else this post shows just how eclectic my tastes in books are, and it's just the tip of the iceberg!  More interesting book choices to come, including a Pulitzer Prize winner and more gardening books, plus a new comic choice.  I'll see you all again soon.

Love,
Lydia

A Bit of Reflection

Hi everyone,

So, I know it hasn't been long, but that's exactly what I was hoping for as I work towards making good habit in writing and life in general.  Here goes.

One of the things on my mind lately has been having kids.  Frankly a lot of my thoughts stemmed from contemplation of a couple posts here on Feathers in Our Nest.  Aliesha talks about how she's having another wonderful baby join her family, but knows that can be hard to hear for some folks, and writes about the loss she has experienced herself.  And it's fantastic to hear more and more bloggers be open about their experiences surrounding having and attempting to conceive children.

I know, a bunch of you out there are probably wondering why after two years a couple like Bryan and I haven't produced progeny yet.  Well, we'd love to.  In fact it's been one of our goals for quite a while, but it just hasn't happened for us so far.  And why is a good question I suppose.  We haven't found much in the way of medical reasons, and after 20 months of trying we're still in the testing phase.  We're not really looking for advice, but it's something that we know people will want to give us if the subject comes up because the natural response is to try to help in any way.  However, we're healthy and blessed to have our needs provided for enough we can support kids if we chose to have them or eventually adopt if it comes to that.

And for now we're buying a house, I'll be starting a garden, continuing to build my business, exploring, creating, and developing all kinds of wonderful things.  And I don't want to take any of this time to ourselves for granted, and as introverts we value it.  So I want to use my time wisely.

When I was in high school I wanted nothing more than to get married and have kids, babysitting and childcare were what I was good at.  I didn't really want to go to college, thinking my family couldn't afford it anyway.  Sure I had other goals, writing a book, making music, reading all the books I could get my hands on, and traveling too.  Then after a little while working I realized I could at least try a bit of college at the local community college.  And things changed, I didn't find the right person to marry right away, I fell in love with photography, painting, and Ireland first.

And when the time was just right I met Bryan, who knew he wanted to settle down and have a family; I was 27, things were good.  For now we're building a home (literally!) that we hope to raise our family in.  Some days it's still depressing for my own part, but I don't ever tire of seeing all those who are happy with kids and babies of their own.  I only get tired of having to answer the same questions about myself because I can't give the happy answer people are wishing for.  On the bad days I take it personally, as if there's something wrong in the depths of me.  But there are more than enough who need love in this world to go around, and I'll give it to whoever I'm blessed with.  And I wouldn't change a thing about my life so far, even if it's not what I expected.

Love,
Lydia