Part 1 of 7: When Words Fail

A year in review series via black-and-white photos because depression

Jan 02, 2025

TW: this post discusses depression

It’s been a year of endless change and uncertainty. In January, my partner and I uprooted our lives, moving back home to Michigan after an adventurous few years in Southern California. He (wisely) left an unhealthy work environment where he practiced Emergency Medicine, a specialty known for high burnout rates even before the pandemic.

We talked about what a “sabbatical year” might look like for him to take a break and think about what he wanted moving forward. We made a loose plan, packed up our home, and hit the road.

As 2024 wound down, I found myself wanting to wade in the waters of everything we’ve been through since then, which included several weeks of driving from California to Michigan, three months of writing and work and pilgrimage in Spain, and then returning again to Michigan (with a trip back to California squeezed in shortly after).

It was a lot. And I didn’t always feel like we were processing everything as it was happening, so reflecting back on this period seemed wise.

But there was a snag with my “year in review” idea: depression. It arrived like an unwelcome guest at the end of my semester, blindsiding me completely. I’d gone well over a year without having an episode after 20+ years of unwelcome visits and thought maybe I’d finally “beaten it.”

I still can’t believe I let myself hope for that so much.

Though I often turn to writing in these dark periods, I rarely share any of it, even after the episode has passed. Partly because it’s not meant to be shared, and partly because so help me Dumbledore if one more person offers me unsolicited advice about what herbal tea, four-step program, or religion will “fix” me.

Let me save you (and me) the trouble: I’ve tried it all. Tea? Oceans of it. Books? Libraries worth. Therapy, meditation, gratitude journals, medication, sobriety, supplements, travel-as-escape, religion, self-blame—you name it. Depression stayed.

On top of all that effort and bitter reality, I’ve also had to do the extra work of recovering from the shame of still living with it despite “doing all the things.” That’s partly why I’m more open and able to write about depression and during depression now: I know I’ll be OK no matter what the internet or the world throws at me, and I know now that I can ask for what I need (and don’t).

I’d actually like to write more about all of that someday. For now, just know I’m OK. Not great. But safe. I have help. I’m sorry if I sounded like a jerk about the tea and stuff; you’re welcome to reach out if you want to say hi or that you care, but I might not reply for a while. I haven’t been good at this in general, and I’m truly sorry if I hurt or confuse you when I withdraw. Unintentionally hurting people during depression is one of the worst parts of it.

For now, let me try to get back to the point.

When Words Fail

Despite my low battery of being-ness, I’ve still felt a dull ache to reflect on the year, to look back and process it all more, if only because it appears that a similar one is on the horizon.

As I oscillate between apathy and numbness with confusing pockets of levity, Who I Really Am feels mostly locked away in an attic somewhere. Yet writing for reflection is so ingrained in my bones that even my autopilot seems to be defaulting to it despite the thick fog of my inner landscape.

Perhaps those terrible conditions are why words failed me when I finally put pen to paper. But I didn’t give up on the idea. Instead of writing about those twelves months, I decided I’d just look at them—I’d travel in time via the pictures I’d taken over the past year.

Doing so felt right during this stretch where everything feels wrong. Maybe because photography is one of my lost loves I should’ve never abandoned. My first major in college was photography—I fell in love with the darkroom where I developed rolls of black-and-white film among the red lights and stinky chemicals and strings stretching from wall-to-wall. I remember clipping my prints to them where they dried like tiny flags and feeling a unique satisfaction when an image captured something I couldn’t otherwise express with words.

As I wandered through my 2024 photos, I decided to use my crummy phone filters to turn some black and white. There’s just always been a quality to images stripped of color that somehow adds more to them, distilling a feeling or moment down to its essence. It lets what’s most important or alive come through—maybe because there’s less to distract us?

Though a far cry from the sensory experience of those darkroom days, this entire process still held its own magic. It allowed me to more clearly see the year and in a new way: as a wild, painful, beautiful tapestry, at times drained of color and at others so vibrant and real that I came to know awe and presence in ways I hadn’t known were possible.

A dozen hours later, and I’m really glad I did this. And obviously, I ended up writing a bit, too. I think I love the result, actually, and as awkward and vulnerable and incomplete as it may be, I felt a tiny itch of wanting to share what I created.

That felt nice, like a little of the fog clearing.

So here I am, Overcast Katie with her overuse of metaphors inviting you on a scrolling journey below (which I’ve had to break into 6 parts because of post limits, so I’ll try and publish these daily over the next week).

What about you?

Are you a “year in review” kind of person? Do you write? Make lists? Dream? Create vision boards? Something else?

What does it mean to you to look back? To look forward?

Onward,

fog and all.

Clearer skies are coming.

Katie

January: The Uprooting

Mike after his last night shift (ever?) in the ER.

Our nearly-empty living room after packing up our belongings into a single POD, getting rid of around half of our things.

February: On the Road

With our POD in storage for at least a year, we hit the road with our truck and camper to make our way back to Michigan.

We stopped first at Saguaro National Park.

We spent several weeks driving over 2,700 miles, exploring parks and places when I wasn’t working (Starlink is great, by the way).

We were sad and things felt heavy for a while. Being outdoors so much helped.

Traces of a creature who came before us at White Sands National Park. I wondered often during these weeks about where our own path would next lead now that we’d left the well-trodden one.