Saturday, 08/06/16, 11:36am, 2:22pm, 4:20pm
But there's several things I haven't loved about the challenge. I read a blog post about it that really hit home for me. She quotes a friend who summarizes the facebook issue up nicely,
“You know one hundred percent of your own life,” she said. “But on social media, you only share the best five percent of it: your baby’s first steps, your trip to the Bahamas, your graduation day. That’s all anyone else sees. It’s fascinating to keep up with those things, for sure. But it’s also why Facebook can be so discouraging: we compare one hundred percent of our own life to THE BEST five percent of everyone else’s.”
I think that's exactly why I've been feeling so down after being on facebook for some time. It's nice in a lot of ways, I like getting support from my friends on facebook sometimes, I do like to share the best 5% of my life on facebook, but I balance it with sharing much of the lowest parts of my life in my blog.
I also don't like flaunting my marriage on facebook. There are plenty of my friends who are unmarried, some who are divorced, and probably many who don't have the perfect marriages they profess on facebook. So I'm going to fulfill this challenge my own way, with a balance of the good and the bad.
My first pictures are taken from the very first time Nasser visited me in California. I took him camping in Joshua Tree National Park, which is where we had our first kiss. We went hiking and scrambling up rocks and I really pushed Nasser out of his comfort zone that day (he was afraid of heights but I didn't know it yet). This was at the very beginning of our relationship, although we hadn't even quite discussed the whole dating idea yet. And I was still really resistant to long distance dating (at the time, he was starting a new job post graduation in Champaign, IL and I was in Temecula, CA- not the easiest places to travel between).
Nasser convinced me to try the long distance thing, and it turned out about a week or so into the new job at Motorola, they announced they were closing the site and he was getting laid off. Turned out to be a great thing for us; he basically got a paid summer vacation out of the deal since they didn't have work for him having just started, and he was able to take several trips to visit me. In the fall he found a new job with Qualcomm in San Diego, not far from me. Here's a couple photos from when I came back to Chicago for a weekend, just a month into our relationship.
Last more blissful pictures are from celebrating my birthday while we were dating. We did a "wasabi challenge" at the end of the meal (I totally drank beer and sake that night, ate sushi, ate a lot of wasabi without knowing I was just barely pregnant).
Then we found out we were pregnant and to be honest, my perfect little world came crashing down at first. If you haven't read my background story on this, go here. We were only about 6 months into the relationship, about a year into knowing eachother. We found out right before the holidays, which was incredibly difficult with only sharing the news with a handful of people, avoiding questions about me not drinking, and of course, telling our parents. We had several holiday parties where my mind was probably incredibly vacant other than thoughts of this new challenge. We appear happy in these photos, but what it doesn't show are the feelings of terror, disappointment, and overwhelming responsibility.
We had a lovely wedding with lots of family and friends, and by that point, people knew about the pregnancy. There was this expectation still by some to "hide" it, which only made the shame more poignant. All those judgments about the order we did things in still hurt. And it frustrates the rational part of me because I shouldn't feel shame about RG and my "out of wedlock" pregnancy. Who does our unplanned pregnancy affect other than us??? Despite the happiness of our wedding, it still hurts when people refer to it as a "shotgun wedding".
Now if you've read my background story, you know that I had a really tough first year of RG's life. That's when the depression really manifested and it took me a long time to seek help. The first antidepressant I tried, had some not so nice side effects. First it didn't mix well with alcohol and it took our friend's wedding to realize it. Here's a shot with the bride. We probably look happy, but I spent several hours of that wedding feeling sick to my stomach, laying on a couch in the bride's getting ready room. Nasser was probably happier than me in the photo, but he was not without concern. At this point we'd only been married for a little over a year, only been together for two, and only known each other two and a half years. Gosh, that feels ages ago. And to think of how far we've come in so many ways, and what we've been through.
We were still learning much about depression, and treatment, and what to expect for me. On a trip to Napa with most of Nasser's family, we decided that first medication wasn't right when the suicidal thoughts seemed so prevalent. Would you have guessed that I felt suicidal on this trip?
I got onto a different medication, but the depression was never gone. We look pretty happy here, but big outings, like taking RG ice skating for the first time, were never easy for me. Looking back it was probably usually anxiety/social anxiety/new parent anxiety that made each of those things so hard.
When TK was around 2 months old, we did a family trip to Aspen. This is one trip where I can't remember any low points. We kinda look like we have the two kid thing down. Here's a stop on the drive.
This next one was at Nasser's mom's wedding, which was a very happy occasion, and despite some anxiety, I did rather well. This photo is of the boys showing off how they can all touch their tongues to their noses, while I can't, as hard as I desperately try. I love how this portrays the goofiness of our marriage and of our little family.
Last summer, Nasser and I, along with several of my co-workers, hiked his first and second 14ers (14,000ft mountains). It was only my second and third and I hadn't done that first one in quite some time. We got a fantastic babysitter to arrive at our house at 3am, so that we could drive up and get started in the dark still. We didn't get home until late afternoon (makes for an expensive date!). Although it makes me feel guilty that this was without the kids, it was definitely one of the best days of my life, and one I felt such accomplishment (it was TOUGH), shared with my partner.
Another "big outing" with two kids in tow, which certainly wasn't my most calming experiences as a parent, we took the kids to see the Nutcracker (the WHOLE thing) last November. Behind those smiles, Nasser is thinking why do we have to take another family picture and I'm thinking please, boys, make one of these shots good and acceptable for a holiday card. Ugh, I need to not be concerned about such trivial things. We failed on our holiday website this year anyway, we only almost finished it.
Next is skiing on the last weekend before closing at one of the resorts this spring. It was not one of my favorite ski days (I hate slush and I distinctly remember telling Nasser on the slopes something like this is stupid we should never have come), but now I'm glad we got to experience this fun day with the kids.
The next one is our family at Mt Shuksan in the North Cascades this June. We have big smiles on our faces, but we'd just experienced a big loss with Adam's death in May. It's strange to be thrown into all these wonderful, happy experiences with the gnawing pit in our stomachs of this big grief.
Now, today? Today, I am blogging in bed with Nasser feeling miserable with digestive issues. We were supposed to head up to Rocky Mountain National Park to salvage the rest of our camping weekend (we chose not to go up yesterday due to the rainy weather forecast). When I started this post, I still had the hope that we would start driving when he felt better, but we're not there yet and it feels late enough to call it. I'm not yet depressed about our failure to fulfill this commitment to our friends and family for this weekend, but I am sad. I certainly don't like backing out on something that we committed to 6 months ago, but I also have to accept that I don't have control over everything, much less Nasser's very picky stomach. Just as it takes effort for him to be empathetic sometimes with my depression, sometimes my disappointment makes it difficult for me to be empathetic with his stomach. Today's picture is the reality of marriage sometimes.
Where are the kids, you ask? Playing Minecraft on the Xbox. Yeah that's right, maybe I share about my stupidly meticulous Pinterest type birthdays cakes on facebook, but there are those days when I seriously question my ability as a parent because I feel shame and guilt over giving them screen time. Some of that's from my depression and some of that's from societal expectations that are stupid.
There's the societal expectation that we have a perfect marriage and if we don't (which come on, face it, no one has that, perfection in humans does not exist) we have to hide it. Just like the stigma over mental illness, hell there exists stigma around physical illnesses and disabilities, we feel we have to hide the pain and struggle. As I've expressed many times in this blog, I'm done with that.
I love my marriage, I love Nasser and my kids. I would not wish that this life didn't exist (despite whatever thoughts have occurred in the lowest of lows of my depression). But it is not perfect. We have scars, and we almost always have recent bumps and scrapes, but we are committed and loving and we keep trying and keep working at it, forever and ever, as we vowed to eachother over 8 years ago.
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