ThreeHundredSeventyThree-The End

So leave it to me to be late! This will be my last entry for this blog as it was actually scheduled to end over a week ago. What difference a year makes! I have a new job, a new hobby, and am beginning to have a new outlook on life. The me with the old outlook would have said since I didn't post on this every day as implied in the title of the blog that this enterprise was a failure. The me with the beginning of a new outlook can look at this project with a more balanced sense of perspective and say that there were some successes and some lessons to be learned even if I didn't achieve what I initially set out to achieve. I learned that attempting to continue with the discipline of a project like 100 Days for a full 365 does not fit in to where I am in my life right now (and definitely not at this time last year!). It has actually made me appreciate the 100 Days project and those who do have the discipline to be creative every day. If (and that's a BIG if) I decide to continue blogging after 100 Days 2011 is over it will be more spontaneous and hopefully better. I also learned that regarding even casual photography I have A LOT to learn. I have already begun to at a minimum attempt to be more editorial and judicious with not only the shots i attempt to take but especially the shots I choose to share. To those of you who did slog it out through this crazy year (and eight days) with me, thank you. It means the world to me.

Rapture

Oh how I love the pop up flash on my camera! Here is a cool picture of some trees I took while trying (in vain) to capture the night sky last night:

Working for a Living

Hello all, I have missed you and sharing photos ever so much. Especially since my new camera which greatly improves my "skills". I have lots to say and share but not the time to do it right now so here is a brief rundown and a few pictures for now.

-My health has improved dramatically over the last six weeks or so. It may be no bigger than a pinhole right now, but I am beginning to get a glimpse of light streaming in from the top of the pit I have fallen into.

-My health has improved so much that I have returned to the world of full time employment, though in a lesser (in pay and responsibilities) position with a different company. So far I like it and I think I will be happy there for a while.

-Everyone else is ok, I have been lucky to be spending a lot of time with Elizabeth, who you all know is my favorite human subject so expect to see much more of her in the coming months.

-Thanks for sticking with me, your support means more than I could ever express.

Puerto Vallarta Anniversary Dinner

 Mill Pond Falls- My Favorite Place in Newington

Easter Egg Hunt 

 Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory

This is Not a Leaf- It's a Bug- Seriously

 T-Ball Princess

 Austin The Hero Kitty

Winning at What Cost?

As some of you may know, or at the very least suspect, I am in the middle of battling major depression.  I don't mean major like Valley Girl, so major, I mean medically major depression. The last thing on earth I thought would ever move me out of my depression enough to write again, even this little bit, is the media circus/train wreck/Greek tragedy to be (I'm sure) named Charlie Sheen. What is it about this (half?) man is bothering me so much? The drugs? The women? The abuse? Yes, all of those are causes for alarm, but what has snuck into my subconscious and festered like a sore is his nonchalant dismissal of those who seek treatment (through AA or otherwise) to battle their alcoholism or substance abuse issues.  He has used such hateful, ignorant (ignoring? as in his own denial?) words as weak and foolish.  He claims to have cured himself with his mind and people are eating it up, thinking that by being on "Team Sheen" they are winning. If Charlie Sheen went on national television, and Twitter, and the Internet and declared that people with any other chronic disease in the world (cancer or MS, just two randomly pick two) were weak and fools for needing outside intervention to cure or manage their problem he would be met with such a backlash not just from the groups that advocate for the rights of people suffering from these diseases but the medical community and, I would like to think, even the interviewers who allow him such a far-reaching microphone and his fans. Picking on people with cancer is just wrong, man.

There was a fantastic piece in the New York Times decrying the lack of attention being given to the fact that Sheen has been arrested for and convicted of (a plea of no contest in one case) violence against women. What I want to know is where is the outcry against treating people with mental illness as equally disposable? This piece is just my opinion and not a scholarly article or argument so I have no statistics to back up what I'm saying but I have enough life experience to know that if people with mental illness could just cure themselves with their own minds without medical, spiritual, or social intervention then the world, at least my world, would be a very different place. While not a believer for my own purposes in the 12-step program, I know people whose lives have been immeasurably changed and improved by it. The seeming invisibility of mental illness makes it such a tricky thing for people to understand how to deal with. If I broke my leg and it was in a cast, people would have no trouble understanding why it's difficult for me to perform life's every day duties while I was recovering. With a broken leg it would be difficult, if not impossible to:  take a shower, clean the house, run errands, and walk the dog. Mental illness can and does cause the same difficulties and then some but because people cannot see the neurochemical imbalance in my brain, they assume it must be easier to "deal with". I am expected to:  buck up, pull myself up by my bootstraps, move on, deal with it, stop dwelling on the negative, look on the bright side, be grateful for what I have, count my blessings, and for Chrissakes just get over it! Picking on people with mental illness is commonplace and is probably one of the last groups of people here in America that it is winked at more than frowned upon to treat in this way.

So now what? Well, hopefully Charlie Sheen will get the help he so obviously needs and use the opportunity and the enormous platform he has been given to help educate people about the real life difficulties of dealing with mental illness, even for someone with tiger blood and Adonis DNA. As for me, I battle on everyday even if some days it seems like I've thrown in the towel. I may not have tiger blood in my veins but I have a great therapist, promising medication, and extremely supportive family and friends. So yes, even if I feel like all is lost, so long as I have the people who love and care about me in my life, eventually I will be winning.

Free

I should have done this sooner, but here is one of the last credit cards that I have to pay off.  I have cut it up so I can stop the momentum and hopefully reverse it.

Nightmare

 No photographic inspiration lately though I did get the urge to write this morning, so here it is.

 Nightmare

I sat on the metal stairs waiting

For them to finish their spiral plunge

Into the unknown depths below I

Clutched my package tightly to

My heart space as a mother her

Fragile-headed newborn when I

Thought the nadir should have been reached

I looked around and found myself no

Longer perched upon the relative

Safety of the stairs but drowning instead

In a strange and murky lake and I

Couldn’t let go of the bundle I harbored

So close though it seemed more an albatross

Than a life preserver

Each speck of dirt floated by with

Stunning clarity of detail as if

A snowflake

You were on the shore in a white

Collared shirt like I’ve

Never seen you wear and I

Reached up hoping for rescue

And tore your shirt separating

It at the shoulder and yet

Though I continued to struggle

You did not reach an arm out

To rescue me and that’s

When I knew you could not

Pull me up any sooner than I

Could release the bundle I

Clutched with such dedication

You could not pull me up but

Surely I could drag you down

Happy Birthday, Alyssa!

Today was my cousin Alyssa's 5th birthday party.  My camera was acting up so I had a hard time getting stabilized shots of the constantly moving four little girls.  Here are a few good ones I was able to get.  No art here, these are family photos.