Part 7 of 7: When Words Fail
The seventh & final installment of a year in review via photos because depression
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This is the final post (#7) of an experiment where I used photos to reflect on the year when words failed me. You can start with Part 1 here for more context.
Onward
I lost momentum with this year-in-review project over the past few weeks because my partner and I started gearing up for another move: this time, back to the same town we’d moved from a year before in Southern California to stay with friends for a few months.
I felt overwhelmed as I tried to organize all of our things spread across two houses, pack up what we weren’t taking, and plan for a long drive across the country in mostly winter-y conditions.
We’re back now, and I’m starting to feel more settled, so I’d like to wrap up this project so I can move on to others that I’ve been working on and am really excited about.
October: Lights
I wrote a lot about darkness in the last post (Part 6), so I wonder if that’s why we ended up chasing light. When Mike saw there was going to be a particularly excellent chance of seeing the Northern Lights in the Upper Peninsula, we headed back up there in hopes of catching them.
What resulted was one of the most extraordinary and beautiful experiences of my life that neither words nor photos can capture (and certainly not black and white ones).
All I know is that, it is good to have a good long sit with the stars when you’re feeling lost.
And it is especially good when they’re accompanied by hours and hours of dancing, colorful lights that leave you with the feeling that life will never be the same again.
The other part of November included a different kind of light: those of a football field. We started attending the local football games at Mike’s former high school, which turned out to be a strange delight (because I’ve never liked football). It may be due to the fact that I finally turned to him one game and asked, “What is a down?”
I’d reached the age of 36 without ever truly learning any rules of the game, but once I realized we’d be attending games regularly, it seemed… prudent?
After he explained some of the basics to me, it was like speaking a little of a language I’d heard all of my life but never once understood. Once I could actually follow a bit of what was going on, I started to get into it, much to my enormous surprise.
But mostly, I loved loved loved watching the marching band at half-time, especially the brave young women who twirled batons in the most unkind uniforms ever (like why are they wearing bathing suits in winter?) and who also lit them on fire, got close to the stands to display their daring, and then proceeded to mostly miss them after flinging them high into the air.
Each time they picked up their batons (still on fire) and kept trying, it felt relatable somehow. I just loved them for not giving up.
For risking the burn and the crowd’s judgment for their art.
November
I bunkered down with work in November like I haven’t in ages. I often spent more time in the camper, my little mobile office, than inside the house.
I tried to go on more walks to avoid getting dead butt syndrome from all the sitting, and for all the other reasons, too, I guess, but I was inconsistent. I mostly wished I could fly south to somewhere warmer, in all the ways, like these goosies.
After nearly 10 months of storing our things in California, we finally had our POD sent to Michigan. Going through all of our belongings was more painful than I thought, reminding me of all we’d left behind but how we also didn’t have much clarity around the future, either.
So those things just went into another storage unit, and I found it harder and harder to stay afloat.
December
We spent more time with the other side of my family this month, and what better way to start things off than with more lights—this time, in the form of a drive-through light show.
All the extra time with my two nieces (who are 7 and 9) brought a new kind of light into my life, too.
After stringing up Christmas lights one night, we built snowmen and had an epic snowball fight that resulted in more chaos and laughter than I’d experienced in a long time.
I think some of my most cherished memories from this time though were those of reading to my nieces at night. In this era of endless scrolling and screens, these pockets of slowness and stories at the end of each day were deeply nourishing and sweet.
As the end of the year approached, and my snowman melted, it was time to start looking toward the new year, the drive back to California, and the next chapter of our lives.
I sensed another year of uncertainty and unknowns ahead, but one thing I knew in my bones was that I would never stop chasing lights.
Even when everything feels saturated in darkness.
Thank you for reading,
Katie
PS: I’ve opened comments to all for this post and not just paid subscribers. I’d love to hear from anyone who’s made it through all 7 of these posts if you’d like to share your thoughts, your own reflections on the past year, or to tell us what kind of light chaser you are.
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This is a lovely writer. Her open sharing resonates with a rare richness. I hope you feel it, too.
That marching band photo is really moving. Thank you for sharing what this past year was like, in photos because (sigh) depression. It's important to talk about, even through the muck.