Let’s Talk About Something Else

It’s everywhere – on Twitter, on my Facebook news feed, on blog posts. The cover of a certain magazine showing a woman standing while breastfeeding an older child who’s standing on a chair and latched firmly on to her breast. You know what? I’m sick of it.

Yes, the photo creeps me out. It’s sensational – meant to provoke a reaction. But I have no desire to read the article. None whatsoever.

I don’t care what, how, or when you feed your child. (Well, I do, but I have my own issues to worry about, thankyouverymuch.) You parent your children, I’ll parent mine. I also don’t care who has it harder – working moms or stay-at-home moms. Frankly, I think both are really freaking hard. I admire moms (and dads) who stay home with their children. I couldn’t do it.

But here’s what I think needs to happen in response to this magazine: NOTHING.

Ignore it, I beg you. They’re looking for a reaction. They’re provoking us. And so far we’re falling for it. We’re doing exactly what they want, and in doing so we’re perpetuating the very war we all speak out against.

Ignore it. 

So, with that said, let’s talk about something else.

Tell me something you’ve done lately that you’re proud of. That is something I actually want to discuss.

 

The Power of Truth

It’s been five days since the antenatal depression light clicked on. Five sleeps. Five sunrise-sunsets. Five turns of the Earth. And everything actually feels okay in my world.

No matter what the situation, I always feel better once I recognize it. An anxiety attack is less end-of-the-world when I realize it’s a momentary and not entirely logical reaction to something (even if I don’t know what that something is). The stones at what looks like the fast-approaching bottom fall away to reveal solid ground beneath me. And I stop feeling like I don’t know what I’m going to do next.

I don’t know if it was the recognizing of it or the saying of it or the writing of it. But that truth took away some of the power this illness has and gave it back to me.

There’s always power in truth. Whether you admit it to yourself or the whole world, saying it helps dissipate the darkness. I know this, and yet I have to learn the lesson every time.

I’m not saying everything is better or that this won’t still be a battle at times, but I am feeling better. And, for now at least, I’m sleeping in my bed instead of hiding in it.

Thank you for all the comments and words of love – both here and elsewhere.

xo

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Image credit: auro on Flickr

Bring on the SITS Girls

We interrupt the previously scheduled suckage to report that today is my SITS day! Any non-bloggers who read this may not know what a SITS day is, so if you want to skip past this I won’t hold it against you. But since I know my mother will ask, I’ll provide this link to the SITS Girls about page that talks about their mission and what they do with featured bloggers.

So with that out of the way, welcome!

Blogging Resources for Women

Here’s the Coles notes version of this blog:

  • I started blogging in January 2011 as a way to deal with the lingering effects of postpartum depression.
  • I blogged about my worst day, how I fired my psychiatrist, and how I almost lost my marriage to postpartum rage.
  • I did a TEDx talk about it.
  • (If you want the whole year in review, you can get it in this short(ish) photo post.)
  • I got better eventually and, because life’s not challenging enough, decided it was time to make a change I’d long resisted and moved with my family to a new city 600 miles away from where I grew up (and where my parents still live).
  • At first it was awesome.
  • But right now it’s kind of hard.

I haven’t written much about all the stuff that’s going on, but I will, and hopefully soon. So stick around, will ya?

And just for fun – some random stuff about me:

So that’s me. It’s so nice to have you here – please help yourself to milk and cookies. (What? I have a 3-year-old.)

If you’d like to leave me a hostess gift, I’d love it if you’d leave a link in the comments to your most honest post. I love it when bloggers put themselves out there (I did a SITS guest post about it) and, frankly, I could use a little inspiration.

Thanks for coming by!

 

Blissdom Travel in Pictures

My one-line review of Blissdom: I didn’t love it.

I enjoyed it, mostly, but I didn’t come away feeling totally inspired the way I did after BlogHer last year. Judging by the tweets on the #Blissdom hash tag, I was one of the few who felt that way.

I think it was a combination of things – it turned out to be a bad time to travel for all sorts of reasons, which made it hard to enjoy the conference. But I didn’t love the speakers. And I just didn’t get the same vibe. Maybe that’s the difference between an event with 700 people and one with 4,000. Or maybe it’s because I went into BlogHer totally ready to be fired up and feeling alive because of what I was doing in this space at the time, which I don’t feel at all right now. In any case, I’m glad I went but I’m not sure it will be on my list for next year.

Things I did love:

  • Rooming with Mama Track and Baby Track. Natalie was awesome and that baby is just so unbelievably, squishily cute. I could hardly stand it.
  • Meeting some bloggers I really wanted to meet. Angela was an absolute dream and someone I’m really glad I got a chance to meet. Mary Lauren was awesome – way more outgoing than I expected from her blog and we had a great time talking (and wondering why the heck Joe Jonas was performing at an event full of women in their 30s and 40s) at the party on the first night. I met lots of others too – Dana, Kimberly, Carri, Doc G, Amber, Greta, Shell, and was really, really glad to see Jessica and Frelle and Katherine and Shannon again. I didn’t spend nearly enough time talking to some of them, but it was great to see those faces and get hugs again.
  • The hotel. Just, wow. It’s incredible. Seriously – check out their photo gallery.
One thing I didn’t do is take pictures of people or the hotel, both of which I intended to do. But I did take pictures from the air on the flight down. (I know, I’m a travel geek.)
So I’ll leave you with these, which are better than whatever words I have right now.

 

Heading out – Alberta from the air

Alberta-from-the-air

Over the border. I see blue!

blue-landscape-from-the-air

Utah red

red-landscape-Utah

The Grand Canyon

grand-canyon-from-the-air

Landing in Phoenix

Phoenix-from-the-air

After that I lost my window seat, but I did make it down to Nashville.

Opening morning of Blissdom

Blissdom-sign

One shot from inside the hotel

Opryland-hotel-interior

And that’s all, folks.

Blissdom Bound

I’m all set. Packed. As ready as I’m ever going to be. (Which is not very, but I’m all about winging things these days.)

A few months ago I bought a ticket to Blissdom. This is a conference I’ve known of for a while and I always thought it sounded like a fun one to go to, especially because of the name. Bliss? Count me in.

But then I realized a bunch of my blog friends—some I have already met and love dearly and some I’m dying to hug—will be there, and I jumped. A big motivating factor is that Natalie (aka Mama Track) is going to be there with her new baby girl (aka Baby Track). And Jessica and Angela are trying to fight me for who gets to hold Baby Track first. (I’m going to win.) And Kimberly and her pregnant belly are going to be there. And there are so many others.

So I bought a ticket and hoped it would work out. And then of course we moved and I got a new job and I started to wonder if perhaps it wasn’t meant to be. But my new boss is great and doesn’t seem to care that the newest member of the team is taking a couple of days off and my husband doesn’t seem to mind that I’m ditching him, so here I go.

This feels much different than when I was leaving for BlogHer last year. I’m still excited, but less nervous. It feels less life-altering, though it could be equally so. Mostly I’m just tired and dreading the travel, just a little bit.

But I’m going anyway, for how else to pursue the life I want than to take the opportunities that come my way? I just ask that if you spot a sleeping blogger in the Phoenix airport that you give her a nudge and send her on her way to Nashville.

I'm Going, Y'all! - Blissdom

While I’m travelling on Thursday, I leave you with a post at Just.Be.Enough. It’s about being a working mom with a stay-at-home-dad husband, an arrangement I’m grateful for, but one that has included some unexpected perspective on what that means for my own mom identity. Please come and visit