well I know what's right, I got just one life in a world that keeps on pushin' me around, but I'll stand my ground and I won't back down

Wednesday, 10/11/17, 7:56am, 9:15am (and Tuesday, 10/10/17, 12:51pm, 1:46pm but I just couldn't get myself to finish it)

Do you know what? I have written 196 blog posts. That feels... crazy/ridiculous/maybe overkill?, to me at least. My "blogiversary" is coming up in less than a month- November 7th- and I'll have had this blog for two full years then. That doesn't seem very long, although it does feel like a lot has happened, emotionally speaking, in that time.

It's weird, looking back at some of my earlier posts, and emails to friends and family, sharing my blog. There was a lot of "I've figured out how to live with my depression" attitude. I'm not entirely sure if I was truly doing much better back when I started the blog; I mean it was before Adam's death and I know that triggered me quite a bit. But then, last November my psychiatrist diagnosed me with "treatment resistant depression", which was really a reflection of the bunch of years prior to that, not simply those few months. And as many of you know, if you've been following along with my blog, or my facebook, or just me, I've been doing much better, as of late, after going through 5 weeks of electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) acute phase (as in 3 treatments a week) and getting to a point of going every 2 weeks for treatment during the maintenance phase now. I'm also on some medications, and going to therapy regularly again (I quit going for a little while during the intense and very regular ECT treatments due to the short term memory loss), and I've gotten a lot of support from many different people, so really it's everything working together.

I've shared some about my "state dependent memory" loss, but there was a bit more that was hitting hard yesterday. I was going through old emails of sharing my blog, and the responses back and forth with various friends and family about it, especially with people who felt able to tell me about their own struggles, after I'd shared about mine. And it pains me, a lot, to realize I'd lost some of the memories of who else out there struggles. It's not like I necessarily discuss our shared illness regularly with most of these people, but I hate that we had these very personal emails about it that I simply don't remember. Thank goodness for emails saving and being able to look back on them, right? As Nasser reminded me this morning, looking back on all those, remembering all the people that share this illness or something similar with me, helps to remind me of how I'm not alone as well as why I share, most especially in the hopes that it helps others who struggle.

It's hard having memories that are just gone though, with no control over that. I guess I just need to keep reminding myself that it's just a sign that I really am doing much better.

I recently discovered a writer on the internet, who I'm a little obsessed with. I discovered her on Quora, where she's answered over 550 questions... woah. I have actually linked to one of those answers (hers is the top one here) before... to the question "Why do people suffering from depression always call their struggle a battle? What exactly are they battling?". Turns out she has a website, and she writes about all kinds of stuff, but I've been most intrigued with her posts about mental illness/depression. I really appreciated her post on helping a friend with depression. I've tried to write about this at times, but I think she writes a whole lot more eloquently than me. So I urge you all to check out her writing.

So this morning I opened up something like 5 different tabs on my Chromebook for "Couch to Half Marathon" training plans. I've definitely gained a lot of weight in the past... 4 months? 6 months? 12 months? more? It's been... needless to say... frustrating? embarrassing? confidence busting? And it shouldn't be. I don't, hopefully, judge others who weigh more than they want to or whatever. We are who we are. And it's so much better to embrace who we are. But I'm not very good at that... as probably most people aren't as well. It certainly bugs me that a lot of my clothes don't fit well or right or at all, but it definitely bugs me more that I haven't been able to run more than 1 and 3/4 miles yet (because it's so low, I have to count by the quarters!), I get winded really easily, I can't hold a plank in yoga for more than a couple seconds, the cycling class I've started going to with my brother-in-law once a week has me sweating uncontrollably and I often feel incapable at going at the higher resistances or reaching the cadence goals. Mostly I want to be in better shape. I want to be in the kind of shape to be able to hike 14ers (14,000+ mountains), bike long distances, run a half marathon again, do triathlons again, and plenty more. I expect some kind of body shape will follow if I focus on those things, even if I don't lose all the weight I've gained.

I rolled my ankle 2 weekends ago, which hasn't helped my exercise goals/attempts. I haven't run since prior to that; unfortunately my ankle isn't quite feeling right still. Luckily I was able to book a last minute physical therapy appointment for later this morning to get help with the ankle. Hopefully that helps. Until I'm back to more running/walking, I'll be trying to focus on the cycling stuff, yoga stuff, hopefully more swimming stuff too. At least I'm exercising a lot more than I was for much of treatment, right? I gotta appreciate the little steps forward.

I'm going to finish off with some gorgeous fall pictures, mixed with the snow, as well as my boys playing in the snow on Monday. (Did I mention that our crazy Colorado weather brought us snow on Monday? It's all melted now and today has a high of 67 degrees. Gotta love global warming!) Oh and FYI, the snowman is holding his own snowball and sitting in the sled, because apparently he went sledding too? And... TK is wearing flip flops because... Colorado kid? He had taken off his snowgear already when I insisted on some pictures with the snowman, and flip flops were his solution. Of course.

I'll trip, fall, pick myself up and walk unafraid, I'll be clumsy instead, hold me love me or leave me high.

Friday, 09/22/17, 11:26am, 1:49pm

Hah. I know I've started a blog post (or two) recently at the same time- 11:26am. The reason I remember the time so well is it's also my birthday- 11/26 or November 26th- haha. I guess I get similarly timed urges to write on different days, or something.

Happy first day of autumn, everyone. I'm glad we're technically out of summer now, even if the weather isn't perfectly following, you know, due to climate change and all.

It's been a little while since I've written, at least compared to how often I was writing, but there's a reason for it. For awhile I had some trouble filling my time during the days; reading has been awfully difficult most days, even though I bring like the same set of books around with me to everyone's houses when I go and hang out with different family during the days. But then this week, well last Saturday actually, when I was having some depressive feelings, I recovered a little by restarting a Netflix show that Nasser and I used to watch some time ago, one that I really didn't remember much. So it's kinda like I'm watching it for the first time again. But that's been a nice way to fill up a lot of my time, haha. And really, this is a good time to be doing this, considering I am still going through this rather intense treatment, right you guys? Does everyone remember I'm going through electro-convulsive therapy, or ECT as we refer to it a lot of the time? Although, we are seriously getting the treatments more spread out, which is an awesome, awesome accomplishment. I don't know if accomplishment is the right word, but it does feel that way a lot of the time. My last treatment was Monday, this week, and my next treatment isn't until Monday, Oct 2nd, so a full two weeks apart! Pretty nuts, pretty awesome, hopefully it goes well. I'm getting much closer to coming off the 24/7 thing, I think, I hope. We have an appointment with the doctor next week, and I do want to talk about that a bit with him, as well as some of the memory stuff, in particular, the "state dependent memory" thing. Now, I know I mentioned this phenomenon briefly in this post, but I couldn't find it elsewhere in the blog, so I might never have actually explained this. Maybe I did, and my quick search just couldn't find it, but just in case, I'm going to explain it again.

So. I've been finding that I have lots of gaps in my memory over the past, well, bunch of years, like at least since I was diagnosed with depression after RG's birth. What the doctor has explained to us, is that I'm being affected by "state dependent memory". State dependent memory is (by Wikipedia's definition) the "phenomenon through which memory retrieval is most efficient when an individual is in the same state of consciousness as they were when the memory was formed." So we hear about this when it comes to alcoholics or drug users the most, but this applies to things like depression, as well. So I formed a LOT of memories over the past many years in a state of depression, and now that I'm much, much less depressed than I was (which is, of course, a good thing), I have lost a lot of those memories. It's... confusing. The last year, since Adam's death, has probably been especially worse. His death seemed to trigger me a bit further than before, and there's a bunch of things from the past year that I just can't remember. It's overwhelming in some ways to just not even know what memories I'm missing to some extent. I had planned two friends' ski trips this ski season- one in January with kids and one in March without kids. Nasser has shown me pictures from both and talked me through the trips a bit to try and bring back some of the memories. The January one, while super fun, was just about completely missing from my memory prior to talking with him, most likely because there was an additional, super stressful aspect to that trip. Unfortunately the original house I'd booked for it was double-booked and our party ended up being the group that lost out, but of course the owner didn't tell me until the day we were supposed to be moving in to the house. I scrambled to find a replacement, which ended up having several issues, and I put all the blame and stress onto myself. All that depression and anxiety I was in for that weekend made it so that the "state" I was in while forming all those memories was a bit more severe than the normal stress I would have been under, and apparently the result was my mind lost ALL the memories from that weekend, like at first I didn't even remember the trip had happened. I still don't seem to recall any of a trip we took last fall to Tuscon, AZ for my brother-in-law's father's funeral, and we have tried talking about that one and looking at some pictures. It's kinda a scary phenomenon to have going on, and I'm hoping to get a better understanding of what to expect, what's considered "normal", how much we can bring back those memories through pictures and talking, etc, from the doctor next week.

I mentioned before that I'm having a hard time reading books, somewhat because of short-term memory issues still, but definitely some because of my cognitive side effects. Like my brain just has trouble processing stuff. And processing books seems a lot more difficult than processing a show. By the way, the show I'm watching is Once Upon A Time. It's quite fun.

Oh and the other thing I've been filling my time with more this week, is friend time. I saw something like four different friends this week, which has been a big increase from what it's been. Although I suppose the start of school has made a lot of people busier, etc. And we're still trying to figure out some routine and trying not to use any one group of people too, too often because I worry that people are just going to get sick of helping me or something, because that's how I think, even though I know I shouldn't. Anyway, seeing friends a bit more has been quite nice. As part of that, I've gotten a little swim in, twice this week, and it's been awhile, so it's been a nice change. I still haven't run since my one run (last week was it?), but maybe I'll get another in this weekend.

We have a lovely bbq planned in our neighborhood on Sunday, which I'm pretty excited about. It's always a nice event, and although it is supposed to be a bit cooler this weekend, I'm hoping the weather holds out enough for it. We've seen neighbors at the bus stops and around and such, but it's not like we talk to people all too often. So this should be nice.

So I know I mentioned how I'm "doing better" than I was, and it's weird. Because of my memory problems, I tend not to always believe that, especially when I do fall into a tougher state or whatever. This morning, with Nasser, I was a little bit triggered, but it wasn't, like, devastatingly triggered like I used to be, and I still recovered rather easily. Nasser can see the difference, rather easily, but I don't, oftentimes. He reminds me, though, which helps, a lot. He was reminding me this morning, how the recoveries I've made the past several times would never have happened before. This is all pretty new, really, since ECT. And that's huge. I can hardly remember the bit of triggering I had this morning, now. I feel good, after having met up with a friend, gone swimming, had plenty of coffee and talked to my brother-in-law a bit, watched my show, done some blogging. And hopefully, of course, this mood continues. But then again, I guess I am recovering much more easily than I used to. And that is really, really huge.

Alright, I am done for today, haha, partially because I want to watch another episode! Have a good weekend, all, and a good start to the fall season.

you can crush it but it's always near, chasing you home saying everything is broken

Monday, 09/04/17, 10:20am, 1:12pm, 7:37pm

Oh boy. This Labor Day weekend has not been what I had expected it to be. Depression happened instead, and it's done a lot of, just, taking over. Deep breaths haven't really helped. Reading, watching shows, getting what seemed like an awesome amount of sleep last night, have all helped for brief periods of time, but then the depression has still continually taken back over. I'd hoped that the depression was going to be limited to just Saturday, and I was going to get the rest of my weekend back, but it didn't happen.

My older child, RG, was kinda upset yesterday about the way we were going to try and get outside for a bike ride, but it necessitated all of us to get out there since I couldn't be left alone and the kids wanted Daddy to be out there with them. RG said, "I hate that you have to do this treatment. I hate it." And although, truly, I agree with what he was saying, hearing him say it crushed me. Omygosh, it literally crushed me. I hate so much how much this ECT treatment and my depression is affecting my children. It's completely awful. I hope, so much, that the treatment will make me better, will make me a better mom, someday, but I don't know that is will. I really don't. It's not a guarantee, by any means.

Do you know, dear readers, I'm not sure I've ever mentioned this in the blog, although maybe I have; you know, the whole short term memory loss and state dependent memory thing have seriously affected me greatly. I feel like my memory of the last, well, several years is iffy. It's definitely not all there, and I really hope it gets better when this treatment ends. It's... tough. Anyway, for a somewhat long while now, I've been cutting down on alcohol, because, well, it is a depressant. But I'd been noticing, on a personal level, that it had been triggering me, fairly regularly. So, our friends' wedding in September of last year turned out to be the last time I've drank. I haven't, at all, since then, and haven't looked back. It's been, well, I have to count it because I haven't before, honestly, a good 11 months, I suppose almost 12 months. And yes, I now remember we're into September already, so really, I didn't actually have to count it, haha. But honestly, that's how my brain is right now, that's how hard thinking is with electro-convulsive therapy. I mean, think about it, I'm having seizures somewhat regularly, so I suppose that makes sense, hah.

You know, since writing the first two paragraphs, we spent a decent amount of time outside, all four of us. We went to the park, I really just sat under the gazebo, hanging out, while Nasser played catch with the boys. Then Nasser joined me, we listened to music on the portable speaker Nasser brought, while the kids played at the park and did some hide-and-seek. Then, after RG requested we go to the Y pool, we made some more concrete plans for grilling for lunch and then heading to the pool, and honestly, after all that, I feel a bit better. I'm not sure if it's the spending time outside, or walking across the street to buy some buns for grilling, or planning to get some laps in at the pool, or realizing how long I've been alcohol-free, but whatever it is, it's helping. So yay. For real.

Nasser reminded me recently that the CPAP that I'm now using for sleep treatment takes on average 2 weeks to treat the sleep deprivation. And I'm only like a week in at this point. So it could still get quite a bit better. And, at least right now, for the last week-ish, I've been on my period, which seriously affects my mood as well. So that could be part of the reason for the depression the last few days. And well, I'm sure I'm not, at any point, going to be totally cured or anything and the depression won't be totally under control of my medication, etc. I'll still have downs, forever. I probably just have to accept that.

Ok, well, I'm going to try and let the little bit of feeling better that happened keep working, so not more talking about the depression right now. Going to get ready for some swimming, because I really do love that, and that will likely help even more, and I'm just going to try.

Alright, I wasn't expecting to write more today, but then I didn't come up with a song lyric to title my post with and so it didn't get published before we headed to the pool, along with some friends from our neighborhood which was nice, and then went to bbq dinner with the half of my family that was in town. The rest of the day was decent, and I felt decently well at everything, but now I'm not as well. I guess I'm probably mostly just tired out at this point. I feel a little exhausted emotionally speaking. It's exhausting, emotionally, when your emotions aren't 100% but then you spend a lot of time around people. And, you know, in public places, you're kinda expected to hold it together and all that. So there's like this level of "faking it" or whatever. I mean, I still enjoyed being at the pool, I enjoyed getting some laps in, I enjoyed talking with my friend, I enjoyed playing in the pool with the kiddos, I enjoyed having dinner with everybody, I enjoyed talking with all the family. It's just, this depression thing manages to bring me down despite whatever else, and doing a lot of great things doesn't dictate what my mood is. I'll keep trying tomorrow, and then then Wednesday is treatment, so that should help, you know, other than the horrible headaches I'll have the day of, cause, you know, seizure, of course.

there, through the broken branches, go, the ravens of unresting thought; flying, crying, to and fro, cruel claw and hungry throat...

Tuesday, 02/28/17, 2:52pm, 4:02pm

I'm feeling especially down today. It's weird to even say that, because it feels like that's just been the last week/months/years of my life, but somehow today's even worse.

The TMS appointment didn't help. I mean I was doing pretty badly, emotionally speaking (both anxiety and depression hit pretty hard this morning), enough so that TK and I took the bus and a friend chauffeured us around the rest of the day. Man, I have some awesome friends. Speaking of which, another friend has made it to several of my appointments so far, in support, and she talked us into swimming after the treatment yesterday. I really need to get back into a good exercise routine, since I know it helps me, but TMS is almost about as much as I can handle right now.

So the TMS appointment today. The technician today was a different one than I've been seeing. They have two and normally I'll see them both each week- 2 days with one, 3 with the other. But last week the technician from today was out and today was my first treatment appointment with her. Although I'd already met her at the motor threshold appointment before treatment started.

Anyway, this technician said some strange things during the appointment today. First she seemed annoyed that I had brought a friend. Then, maintenance treatments came up in the conversation so my friend and I were asking about whether or not it's common for people to do maintenance with TMS (sounds like typically 2 days of treatment a month). The technician said something like "I'll be honest with you, a lot of people end up with maintenance treatments. And often those that go into remission, relapse or have a minor episode after a year. And most (many?) people end up on antidepressants again."

Now. It was likely not the technician's place to tell me all this negative news. And I don't know what's true now. When I search studies of the long-term efficacy of TMS, I'm finding good results, but most of what I'm seeing doesn't look past a year. So she could be right. But then why wouldn't the doctor have mentioned this in the first place? The technician shouldn't be acting like she knows all the long-term efficacy anyway, without basing any of this off studies. And what the hell really, telling me how this treatment doesn't really work for most people isn't the right thing to do why you're administering the treatment to me.

My friend pointed out that maybe she had been having a bad day. The technician probably thought she was being honest and helpful with me. I still don't think it was her place to say what she said, and I will be bringing it up with the doctor, carefully and not angrily, when I meet with him later this week.

Sigh.

I don't know what to think except to try and reject all the external noise. I need to just focus on getting through these treatments, doing what I can to keep myself sane and functioning right now, and doing what I can to feel better.

I hear it’s music ringin’, it sounds an echo in my soul, how can I keep from singin’?

Sunday, 10/02/16, 10:01am

We've taken this weekend as pretty lazy so far. I left the house for a grocery and library dropoff run this morning, but mostly we've been hibernating. Nasser especially needed the break after a stressful shortish week back at work, with late night calls pretty much every day. I think he still has some work to finish up this weekend for some things that are needed by tomorrow.

I haven't had all that much stress in the last few days and yet I'm the one who hasn't been doing as well. I'm mostly better from that depressive breakdown that hit hard Thursday and Friday, but still kinda off. Still edgy, still a bit anxious and easily triggered.

So I'm blogging now, as a preventative? I got in some good road riding on Wednesday this week, but other than that I haven't really been exercising as a preventative. I should be doing much more. I know think that getting into shape would help my depression, and yet dieting or restricting my eating, makes me feel low. I guess for a little bit. When I got myself on the Atkins diet earlier this summer, and didn't cheat, I felt good. But it took a good week or two to feel more normal on the diet. And apparently I can't get myself to go through that time period again in order to successfully diet and lose that extra weight.

And not that it really matters how much I weigh, or whether or not I have this extra tummy weight and separated abs from pregnancies, or whether or not I still fit in my pre-pregnancy clothes, or whether or not I "can get away with" wearing a bikini, because f that. I want to feel comfortable in my body and that's what I care about. I need to work on the confidence in what I've got thing and finding clothes that make me feel good in the body I have, not for the body I wish I had. And working throughout it to find a feel good and healthy weight on my body, one that maybe doesn't make my knees hurt as much wouldn't be bad to find, but I don't have to be super skinny or lose my athletic build or require a sugar free diet.

I like exercising and I would still recommend it to any and all. But I don't typically exercise for the purpose of looking great in a swimsuit or whatever. I do it because it's therapeutic to my mental state. I do it because it makes me healthier. I do it because I enjoy it. I do it because I love running races and triathlon races and bike charity events and open water swims and skiing and hiking and 14ers and big athletic accomplishments. I do it because it makes me feel good. I do it for me. I do it to enjoy all those athletic things with friends and family and my kids. I do it to help teach my kids by example, that leading a healthy lifestyle can be so beneficial and enjoyable.

I didn't realize I would get on my soap box about exercise in this post today. But that often happens with the blog. I come to it, sometimes with a few ideas, but I just start writing. I let my thoughts become real and readable to others. I don't know why. But since starting the blog, I feel the need to keep writing. It's not there every day, but almost. There are so many more thoughts that flash through my head throughout each day that never make it to the blog. So many insights that I think to myself, I need to write a blog post about this topic or whatever anecdote. And I forget the next time I sit down with my Chromebook. There's just always so much more we learn each and every day.

And so I keep writing.

home where my thought's escaping, home where my music's playing

Tuesday, 09/27/16, 10:03am, 12:57pm, 3:24pm, 5:47pm, 8:05pm (gah, briefly editing during choir rehearsal while she reviewed other song parts and altos weren't singing), and finally 10:28pm, make that all the way up until Wednesday 09/28/16 12:28am (all mountain time)

Whew. Wow. Blog, I have missed you, but it's been a good break. An excellent break. A much needed break. A beautiful, loving, quality friend time, adventurous, whirlwind, heart bursting break.

Last night we got home from Bermuda. Bermuda, bermuda, bermuda. Oh how I love thee.

Our friends who got married there on Saturday actually live there. So now we are already trying to decide when we'll go back, with the kids. Need to save up some money to all go as a family! And we want to go when we can enjoy the ocean together as a family. So to a point where the boys are strong enough swimmers that we can do some boating (did I mention that those friends of ours own a boat?) and some snorkeling. We actually ended up with no beach time, other than walking on the dark beach and sticking my feet in the water at the reception (that was incredibly amazing though). The one time we were going to try and make it to the beach was the morning after we arrived and we really were in need of some sleeping in time then. Several other times we had rain, wind, storm coming in. More on that later.

We arrived last Wednesday around noon island time, after THREE flights from Denver starting at 7:40pm mountain time last Tuesday evening. It was originally supposed to be only one connection, at JFK, but the Denver to New York red-eye was canceled by Delta months ago. They first tried to re-book us through LAX, but after Nasser called them, he made it better by flying through Salt Lake City.

Oh man, we arrived a bit bleary-eyed, but super excited. 

I LOVED watching the view as we were coming in.

Nasser got tired of me taking pictures pretty quickly. Haha. I loved the little airport though and it's "cute-ness" just made me that much more excited to be there.

We took a taxi (the first of many) to our little Airbnb studio apartment.

I suppose you could call it an efficiency? It was a one bedroom, one bathroom place, one unit of several others in a house that appeared to have been converted. Our host, Josie, was super nice, attentive and was there to meet us and show us around the place. It didn't have a kitchen, but it did have the necessities- a mini fridge, microwave, coffee maker, hot pot for heating water, set of 4 plates and silverware, mugs, glasses, as well as a few little snacks to get us started. She even had books and movies, and a little balcony (which we failed to use). We could have even picked up some food and grilled it on the little charcoal grill she had provided in the closet. We went out on the balcony only to bring in the patio furniture before the storm came through; the entire island was preparing for Tropical Storm Karl before it skirted around us Saturday morning, the morning of the wedding. It hit its closest to the island at around 4am. Again, more on that later.

Our rented studio was in the same building as a couple of our friends. Their unit was just downstairs, similar provisions, although it was a different portion of that house. It appeared that our unit was the original master bedroom, with the master bathroom, so nice big shower and bathtub (although Bermuda has limited water, everyone collects rain water as there is no municipal water supply. So we were not really "permitted" to use the bathtub. Although we did wonder if there was plenty of water after the tropical storm, we never used it).

We quickly dropped off our stuff Wednesday, and met our friends outside who had a taxi to scoop us up and head to the caves. It was raining, a lot, that entire day, but we ended up having an amazing time, taking a tour through Crystal Cave (we couldn't go to Fantasy Cave because the tides were too high),

The underground lake can be accessed by scuba diving through underground tunnels, but they do tours for the normal people. They used to do boat tours through this, so I think that's how many of the stalactites were broken. Some were purposely broken to allow for tours to walk through, as well as some stolen by tourists. 

Very sad to see how damaged it looked.

The two large rock formations are what's really interesting about this picture.

The yellow fire hydrant looking one on the left is about 14 ft tall. The one in the right bottom corner is 35 ft tall.

The distortion happens due to the layers of fresh water vs salt water and the mix in the middle. Also, the depth of the water gets to be about 55 ft deep in sections. Seeing through the crystal clear water was mesmerizing. I could have sat in there and just looked at the cave and water for hours.

They'd been getting a lot of weather in Bermuda over the previous days and as a result the tides were high? 

I think. Or maybe that time of day in particular? 

Anyway, we had to duck to get under some of the rock formations as we walked on the floating bridge. 

You can see up to the original opening to the cave way up there. Two young boys discovered 

the cave in 1907, but some of the rock formations in the cave are estimated to be about 1.5 million years old. 

Back when the two boys, around age 10/11, found it, they of course only had candles to explore and 

ended up getting lost for like 3 hours trying to get back out. Or so was the story told to us by our very entertaining tour guide. Oh how I wish I could remember his name! And I should have taken pictures of more of the wonderful people we met on the trip, especially people who lived on the island- our host, our cave tour guide, some of our taxi drivers, guests at the wedding who live on the island. 

(speaking of which, I cannot wait to see the professional photos and more of the other guests' photos.)

eating lunch at the Swizzle Inn (had to try the Rum Swizzles there of course),

we got to meet the mother, aunt, cousin, sister, and brother-in-law 

of the groom at Crystal Cave and for lunch. Nasser already knew some of them and 

our other friends had arrived the previous day. a lot of the guests mingled really nicely together- friends from different parts of their lives, from childhood, high school/college, from work, from Bermuda, and family 

and adventuring through the forests and caves and swimming holes with the friends staying at the Airbnb.

I, of course, had to climb a tree; it was raining and the tree was super slippery, so I didn't climb very high up. 

By the way, we're still on Wednesday only. Keep in mind we have a second wind after seeing some cool things, we finally got a good meal in us (late in the afternoon after breakfast had been in New York early in the morning), and the rain was keeping us feeling really awake and alive.

we trekked through the forests, on a sorta trail

we tried taking shelter in the rain for a bit, but we were pretty soaked by that point

had we been explorers who needed shelter for the night, we would have been set in this cave we found.

good thing we had our cell phone flashlights, haha.

we  found another cave with its own private, more untouched underground lake. 

I was way too scared to attempt swimming in it without any real light and 

trying not to get pierced by rock formations under the water. We really considered it though!

I am pretty sure swimming in any of these caves and swimming holes is frowned upon, but I would expect some of these cave pools are accessible by scuba diving. maybe someday I'll get scuba certified. it's something I'm actually somewhat scared of, I think. but it also sounds amazing. you would think that me being a swimmer and I love snorkeling, I would be able to handle scuba diving, right?? someday, perhaps we'll do it as a family when they boys are in high school. how cool would that be?

it was pretty eerie 

but really fun

we did swim in a pool that was better lit. so so cool. 

and it totally rained the entire time. we saw three crabs on the rocks around us; 

two were fighting eachother. had my phone been truly waterproof and I wasn't scared to lose it, 

I would have gotten some pictures of that too. 

Nasser captured a couple shots for me before getting in himself.

After another taxi ride (boy we felt bad about getting the seats wet since we were soaked through by this point and dripping although the driver was super nice and thought we looked like we really needed the ride, which we really did, it was way to far to walk), we went back to our Airbnbs and took showers. We then made our first of many walks over to the Fairmont Southampton hotel, where we joined up with the others in the hotel lobby lounge for the first of many drinks. (oh I forgot about the Fireball whiskey shots we had at the Airbnbs before walking over, hah!). It was an interesting walk in the dark, a little over a mile and boy, walking up the hill to the hotel really pooped me out and made me sweat (in the crazy humidity) profusely. God, the sweating on the trip!! In many ways, I am glad to be back to the dry, Colorado weather.

So the drinking thing is another interesting part of the trip. I'm going to take a brief break from the trip synopsis to talk about alcohol. So if you're reading my blog for the first time, I should fill you in on something. I suffer from depression, and this blog chronicles my life with depression, my life with kids, my life with travel and running and triathlons and everything. But depression is the biggest theme you'll find. I write as therapy to me, I write to share a personal experience with mental illness, and I write to raise awareness to the struggles and stigma of mental illness, in particular, depression, since that's what I suffer from. If you want to read about how my disease first manifested, you can find that here. Anyway, back to alcohol. In the last, I don't know, year maybe, I've really cut down on my consumption of alcohol. It really started when Nasser and I noticed a pattern with some of my depressive breakdowns. Too much alcohol for me = I am easily triggered.

But, this week in Bermuda went really well with that. I didn't have kids to worry about, and I totally trusted them being with my parents, and we were at least accessible by text and email easily enough, and it was so fun. I remembered that I can be quite extroverted, when I'm feeling happy and stress-free, and the trip really rejuvenated me. I limited my alcohol so that I wouldn't be hungover or sick or anything like that and also to limit the possibility of getting triggered. There were a couple times in the late night partying where I felt "off", but it was mostly physical. Like the night after the welcome dinner, we stayed up late, with drinking and games in one of the suites, and I just felt a bit drunk nauseous, plus my cold was really acting up, which I discovered, seemed to be a little bit triggered by the hotel, possibly the crazy air conditioning. It seemed better at our rental and outside. Oh that stupid cold was a pain in the butt nose through the entire trip.

My depression stayed away for almost the entire trip. It only crept in a little bit late Sunday night, with just Nasser at our Airbnb. I think I was starting to feel the effects of going, going, going (or raging as we fondly referred to it), and feeling sad that the trip was ending, and I was feeling stressed about coming home, and I hadn't blogged in so long (but it was also really nice to just experience and not reflect for many days). I was so tired, and we were trying to get up early and get a sliver of beach time in Monday morning before our flights home (that didn't happen between getting to bed so late, and feeling super tired in the morning and sleeping in slightly more, and packing, and we didn't know what we would do about showers if we went to the beach before many hours of travel home). I'm trying not to regret missing out on certain things; I just want to go back that much more though.

The wedding activities were amazing and there were lots of them.

they took care of us so well, and in addition to all this, there was lots of social time/ bar time/ incredible hotel suite time in the after parties of everything. there was a fair amount of different groups of friends and family social time and everyone seemed to get along so well. they ended up with about 80 guests at the wedding and recovery cruise events, with most people visiting from "out of the country". talk about incredible.

The fabulous bride and groom have spent a lot of time traveling for work and going to interesting places in the years since they've finished college. Sometimes when I feel sad about my life, I regret not having more time between college and having kids. However, there is so much travel with kids I'm excited to do in the next several years. And I often get excited about how young I'll be when the kids start college, and when they move out for real on their own, and perhaps how young I'll be when they have children of their own one day. Anyway, I feel so grateful to have been included in this wedding and sharing the celebration over so many days with such wonderful people.

the ferry that took us to Hamilton for the welcome dinner. the groom is in the knee high socks on the right.

clearly, I am obsessed with selfies

 there were these cool, little one-person sailboats that we passed on our way into Hamilton.

drinks/appetizers before the welcome dinner. again, "groupies" 

the happy bride and groom, listening to the friends' speeches. 

I missed any video or photos of Nasser's speech because I was too busy listening and trying not to cry. 

I met the groom in high school, before I met Nasser. he and Nasser have been friends since 2nd grade.

 the party bus back to the hotel, for more drinks

dark, but I kinda love this picture. we had such a great great time.

 checking out the "hurricane bulletin board" at the hotel. 

at this point the storm was supposed to come in Saturday morning, but it was only a 

"tropical depression" at this point, 
Thursday night after the welcome dinner. later on, it got upgraded to "tropical storm"

I went for a run Friday morning, before the storm came in much. 

some wind, and a little rain towards the end of the run. 

also, these lizards were super cool to see, on that path to the hotel.

 I did around 1.8mi, a little past the hotel than up the hill and inside, 
joined a friend in the exercise room for about a mile on the treadmill, 
then we ran together back to the Airbnb another 1.2mi-ish (so about 4mi total, maybe a little less) 
and he went back on his own to the hotel. quite a group of separate runs with 
some walking through the hotel in between and loading up on water in the fitness room, 
but I'm so glad I got that run in. also, I love getting to run with friends. 
man, I regret not getting a running selfie with our friend. darn. 

(see this is why I take so many photos to document the trip. they make me so happy to look back on and remember it, and be able to share with others. by the way, sorry this post is so freaking long. jeez I have a lot to say, you guys. :) )

the storm was rolling in most of Friday, with rain throughout the day. we played card games at the hotel, many of us friends hanging out in the bride and groom's suite most of the day, watching the storm from the safety of the hotel a few floors up.

Friday night, with the impending storm, the Airbnb folks headed back to our rental homes and we got together in our room to watch "The Perfect Storm".  I had never seen it before, and maybe it was the excitement of our own upcoming storm, but I really enjoyed it. Except there were sad parts. Still enjoyed the movie and now I'm really interested in reading the book. Along with all the other books I still have not read.

The next morning, we woke up at various points through the storm, listening to the rain and wind. I never actually woke up until about 7am, after the storm was heading away from Bermuda. Around 10am, we lost power, and Nasser and I ended up outside, chatting with our host lady for a bit. The power came back on after about an hour; it affected about 800 homes, just a portion of the island, and apparently, the people at the hotel heard the backup generators turn on. All in all though, we came through just fine.

We headed to the hotel around noon, as the guys were due to hang out with the groom all afternoon, playing all the various games people brought and drinking lightly. (we brought 2 very fun games that were hits at various points during the weekend, and they fit in my bigger purse which I often brought to the hotel so we could play in the fancy suites or in the hotel lobby lounge.

The spouses/girlfriends of this core group got together for lunch Saturday afternoon, and then we went our separate ways to get ready for the wedding. We were splitting a room with our friends from the Airbnb, just for Saturday night, the night of the wedding. It was a nice 2 double beds room, with a bit fancier of a shower than the Airbnb (you would hope for how expensive that hotel was- yikes!).

me, ready for the wedding. prior to getting my hair blown about in the wind, eventually putting it up, and prior to all the sweating in the heat and humidity, especially dancing at the reception.

the train/trolley to the Reefs hotel for the wedding 

a sub-portion of the ladies, the spouses/girlfriends 

 lots of wonderful friends

 gorgeous views on the walk down to the wedding site

 the wedding site, on this deck on top of an outcrop of rocks. incredible location and gorgeous spot to get married!!

 the 2 awesome dudes, the husband of the sister of the groom, 

and the boyfriend of the sister of the bride, held up the chuppah for the ceremony.

the groom with his parents, and his sister, one of the two bridesmaids. 

the only "traditional" wedding party were the 2 awesome dudes, who were ushers, and the sister of the groom and sister of the bride, who were bridesmaids. and then there were just lots of friends. 

I missed getting a shot of the sister of the bride, simply because there were too many heads in the way after missing the perfect shot on the stairs.

the bride, and then the bride with her parents. so so pretty!

 they incorporated many Jewish traditions into the wedding ceremony. also our friend in front of us (blue kippah in the bottom left corner there) was taking video of the ceremony on that GoPro. I am so excited to see his finished product you guys. this friend has some mad skills with photography and video editing, and works in the animated movie industry. Nasser has some cool friends, no that's WE have some cool friends.

the bride and groom were so clearly elated. so so awesome to witness.

hah, these matchy matchy cutie-patooties in the full Bermuda outfit

The next 3 shots are "the guys" as part of the groom's crew. The groom convinced most of them to wear the traditional Bermuda shorts, with knee-high socks, and boat shoes.

And then the next 5 shots are the ladies, the spouses/girlfriends of those guys. We all ended up in variations of blue dresses, which we totally did not plan.

posing for the professional photographer, the groom's "crew", with the bride and groom

the after party in the amazing fancy suite

it had a bar

Nasser enjoyed bartending for a bit

the suite had a kitchen, where we made frozen pizzas after the wedding. I helped the sister of the bride for a little while, because apparently she and I both like to host, and I like to help at parties when I can. haha. it's something I truly enjoy though. I'm useful and good in the kitchen. :)

We had beautiful weather for the entire recovery cruise. You could NOT have asked for better weather. Sunny at various points, but it was behind the clouds for awhile while everyone was swimming where we anchored in the water. Oh and that water was the perfect temperature to me. I dove in and was one of the first people in, because... swimming. Yeah... one of my favorite past times. I hope some people took photos while we were in the water, I think they did, but I failed at that one. (not that I don't have enough photos, right? are you still with me, anyone? Buehler?... Buehler?...) I was in the water pretty much the entire time we were anchored.

mimosas were had because... raging. continued. on and on. you guys. 

leaving the little harbor

we swam somewhere out in the beautiful water. like I said, less direct sunlight while we were in the water. also, the boat had a bunch of pool noodles for everyone to use in the water and float. so so so fun. we were probably in the water for at least an hour, chatting with people, swimming around. I of course did a couple laps around the boat. hah.

After the recovery cruise, we walked back the Airbnb to again shower. Many of our friends met us for dinner near the Airbnb- many of them did the walk from the hotel which was so nice! We were a little uncertain about dinner, since many places were closed- Bermuda kinda shuts down early on Sundays. But this little place, Island Cousine, was open. Nasser and I shared a chicken curry roti (like an Indian burrito- amazing!!), with a side salad, some onion rings which we shared with the table, some garlic bread, and grilled plantains. So so delicious, and slightly less expensive than a lunch time meal for two at the Burger Bar inside the Fairmont Southhampton hotel. Omygosh, we ate at the Burger Bar around 5 times throughout the course of the trip, ordering various things. We so did not diet on this trip. But perhaps we will get back to that now that we're home.

We went back to the hotel one more time Sunday night after dinner (we had to catch a taxi since it was raining after we got out of dinner, luckily the group who had walked from the hotel was able to catch a taxi pretty quickly too), so that we could "rage" one last time, with some friends and the groom. The bride needed sleep by this point. We played more games, and then headed back to our hotel in the wee hours one last time.

Monday morning, like I said before, we were in a mad rush to get over to the hotel, attempt the beach maybe to walk in the sand, but the weather wasn't cooperating with that, and we ended up spending quality time with the bride and groom, and their families, and eventually a couple other friends, at the Burger Bar, the hotel lounge, and finally, we hitched a ride on the hotel shuttle to the airport, at a lower cost than a taxi. It turned out we were on the same plane to Atlanta from Bermuda as the mother, sister, and brother-in-law of the groom. And we even ran into the sister of the bride and her boyfriend in the little tiny airport.

I enjoyed my last views from the plane, sad to say goodbye, but ready for a nap, and to head back home and to reality. 

I suppose I've been spending most of the day reliving the trip by writing my blog, so it hasn't been much reality, and it turned out incredibly long. It's time for some sleep now. It is almost 12:30am mountain time.