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It's funny that this picture would pop up for me around Mother's Day. I schedule posts for Five Lens Photography way in advance and this is one I just scheduled. So I was inspired to write about it. But first, let me explain what's going on here. The bird on the left is a Song Sparrow. The bird on the right is a Brown-Headed Cowbird. Brown-Headed Cowbirds typically lay their eggs in other bird's nests. The moms never make a nest for their babies, instead opting out of that part of parenthood and leaving it up to someone else. A lot of people hate Brown-Headed Cowbirds for this reason. But she takes a lot of time picking out a suitable foster mom for her baby. Some birds notice the BHC egg right away and knock it out of their nest or build another nest on top of it. But this Song Sparrow took this baby under her wing. She's feeding this baby that is obviously not hers and she doesn't have to do that. Look at the picture, like really look at it. It's beautiful especially after you know the backstory.

Sometimes motherhood is nontraditional. I really think it's important for people to not only acknowledge this but to also accept it. It's not fair to assume that only women who have been pregnant and given birth are considered mothers. It's not always the case. I remember seeing a debate about whether or not women who gave birth via C-section are "real" mothers, like vaginal birth is the one and only way. Excuse me? Both ways are terrifying and risky for both mother and baby. If this is what it's come down to, like this is what we're fighting about then I guess there is no hope for someone like me.

I knew at a young age that I wouldn't be a mother, at least not in the traditional sense. My stepmom was pregnant with my youngest brother when I was 15 and she told me the realities of what some women go through while pregnant. I also remember my senior year in high school in anatomy class where our teacher told us in excruciating detail what happens to a woman's body when her water breaks. I had decided then and there, or so I thought. I told my own mother that I wasn't going to have any children. My mother, who had me at age 37, was ready for grandbabies. She probably would've had them if my oldest brother hadn't died. We'll never know.

My mother was one of the people telling me I would change my mind about kids. I would want them someday (spoiler alert: she was right). She told me childbirth is the most forgettable pain. She told me the reason women are here is to bring more children into the world. I was appalled. I was like "wait a minute, what about me?" What. About. Me. At the time, I thought I knew what I wanted: a demanding career with lots of opportunities for travel. I really did.

Fast forward. At age 19, I fell in love. I thought we wanted the same things. I wanted a child badly for the first time ever. I knew I would be a good mom. For the first time, I wanted to be a stay at home mom. I can't explain to you why I felt this way. I think apart of it was loneliness. At this point in my life, I didn't want to be seen. I just wanted to be at home; I didn't want to go out. I figured if I had a little one to take care of, there would be less opportunities to go out. I am thankful everyday I did not get pregnant at this time because there is no way I was ready to take care of a child.

My early 20s, I got married. I wasn't on any form of birth control and I never had been and honestly, it's a miracle I never did get pregnant. I was open to the idea of child. I had a big pregnancy scare in the early stages of dating my ex-husband. I was scared, deeply afraid but eventually I grew comfortable with the idea. I counted the weeks and found that my baby would be due in March. It would be a March baby, like me. I did copious amounts of research about pregnancy and I still carry some of this knowledge. I felt like maybe the baby was a boy. We had names picked out. I was sure. Then one day, all the symptoms disappeared just as quickly as they came. I never went to a doctor to find out but I believe what happened to me was an early miscarriage, a super early miscarriage. I was devastated.

If I'm being completely honest, this was a blessing in disguise. If that baby had come to be, they would be six years old. Just finishing kindergarten. I cannot imagine what that would be like. I ended up with a man who has two daughters and his youngest will be six soon. If my baby had come to be, we would had two kids potty training around the same time. We would have had two kids going through their "terrible twos" and "treacherous threes" together. Sometimes I do let myself entertain the idea that I had this baby...and what our lives would look like. It's hectic and crazy.

So, no. No kids came out of this body and if I can help it, none will. I have a huge list of reasons why and I'm not explaining myself. Do I know what it's like to carry a child? No. Honestly, a dream of mine is to carry a child for someone else. I know what it's like to help raise a child. I do it all the time. I have bottle fed, potty trained, comforted, cooked, sang, danced, taught, celebrated, anything you can think of that a mother would do, I've done it, except the biological stuff. What I don't know is what it's like to carry one. And I know there are so many people out there who wish they could.

One time I wrote that Mother's Day is the day that I realize with startling clarity that I am a parental figure until I'm not. I am a parental figure until Mother's Day and then I am not. I have people ask about my stepdaughters all the time but do they wish me Happy Mother's Day? No. There are people who treat me as a parental figure, admonishing the girls that they should listen to me, but do they wish me Happy Mother's Day? No. Within the confines of my home, I am a parent. I am not called "mom" or "mommy" or any variation and I wouldn't allow it anyway. I just wanted to be an adult they felt safe around. They consider me a stepmom and it's known. It's celebrated. I love it. But it hurts when there are people who know our day-to-day lives and still don't consider me worthy of a simple Happy Mother's Day. It hurts to know I spend way more time with the girls than they do and yet I'm nothing but a girlfriend, an accessory.

People in nontraditional parent roles...I see you. I hear you. You are not alone. Sometimes parenthood looks like children you are not related to bouncing on their toes because you're home. Sometimes it looks like quiet warnings in public to stay together and the resounding, no questions asked response: "okay." Sometimes it looks like getting on the floor to play. Sometimes it's holding a child who is too shy and scared to interact with others at her own birthday party and you're the only one she will cling to. Sometimes it's a gray cat curling up between your feet in the middle of the night. Sometimes it's three animals excited about the prospect of getting a nightly treat. I have to remind myself that I'm doing okay, that I'm doing my best. I try to look past the hurt and confusion I feel and be present. Kids always know who is there and who isn't. They will know that I was there.

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Goodbye to my 20s.

It’s the last day of my birthday month...yes, I’m one of those. But also, I just turned 30 so this was a big one. 

I’ve seen a lot of things about how the 20s are not always the most fun time and how things get better once you enter your 30s. I don’t know if that’s true but I do know about my 20s...they were rough. I spent most of the decade trying to make others happy while losing complete focus on myself. I completely forgot to take care of myself period. I kept saying yes to everyone when there were times I should’ve said no. 

During my early 20s, I had crippling anxiety and depression. My poor mental health kept me from a lot of things. As I’ve always done, I put on a great show for everyone and few people saw through me. I didn’t love myself, not in the slightest. Thankfully, I was able to see a therapist and she helped me re-frame my thoughts and see logic where there wasn’t any before. She saved me by giving me the tools to save myself.

I moved to Tennessee straight out of college at age 22. The town I live in is vastly different than where I moved from and it took years for me to adjust and settle down. In the meantime, it was rough. I considered moving several times. I’m glad I didn’t because things ended up changing for the best but I’ll get there. Right before I turned 23 I met the man I would eventually marry. He was charming, sweet, thoughtful. I soon learned that it was all a part of some game I didn’t realize we were playing. I learned the hard way. In the two years I was wrapped up in this weird labyrinth, I hurt some people along the way and for that, I have regrets. My first marriage changed me in so many awful and wonderful ways. For one, I FINALLY realized what I was doing to myself by trying to make others happy without focusing on myself. And once I realized, I was done. Over and over, my ex-husband would threaten divorce and over and over, I would be devastated at the thought. Until one day, he made his usual threats and I just shrugged and said okay. Until one day, I yelled instead of letting myself be yelled at. I fought for myself, stood up for myself, dug through figurative wreckage to find myself again because I had lost myself for way too long. I missed me. Before I got caught up in this madness, I had found a place mentally and physically where I was happy to be me. And then I lost myself. I promised that I would never do it again and I haven’t.

At age 25, I was thrilled about my next steps: my first divorce. I sincerely hope it is my only divorce because that whole process is such a stressful endeavor and we didn’t even have any children. After our final trip to the courthouse, I went to the social security office to change my name back to McNally. It felt like coming home after a long, treacherous journey. It’s taken YEARS for me to even talk about what I had gone through. Even now, new stories come out all the time to those closest to me. There are things that are still locked away in my vault, things I can’t say, things I’m ashamed of. 

The last half of my 20s, I started dating the love of my life: Josh. We had both been through traumatic first marriages and initially, we were almost constantly in flight-or-fight mode but eventually things smoothed out. And I was really confused. I was like “wait…..I haven’t cried this week...we’re not yelling at each other...shouldn’t the honeymoon phase be over soon?” I was always told that things change after “The Honeymoon Phase.” Then things fall apart, hearts are broken, and you really have to decide if it’s worth the turmoil. This never really happened with Josh. Sure, we’ve had rough patches but there were normal arguments. Just regular disagreements, mostly misunderstandings. I was also confused because I had never been romantically loved so completely and unconditionally. I never met someone who seemed fascinated and enthralled by me just simply being me. Even though we’ve been together almost 5 years, there are still times when I do or say something and Josh visibly melts. I didn’t even know these things were possible, especially for someone like me.

Becoming a(n) (unofficial) stepmom was something EXTREMELY new. Being partially responsible for tiny humans absolutely terrified me. Y’all, I’m serious. I spent the first 2-3 years being scared out of my mind that I was going to screw it all up. I dove into stepmom-dom headfirst, to be the point where I was doing way too much and my anxiety was outrageous. It also didn’t help that I learned months before that my mom is sick and dying from an incurable disease. I could write all day about my mommy issues, about my guilt of not asking enough questions, but instead thinking I know everything. When I became a person responsible for young ones, it became ABUNDANTLY clear that I know NOTHING. Internally I was like “no, no I don’t deserve this kind of love that is so stinkin’ pure, I don’t even know what to do with it…” I love Josh and the girls. Fiercely. Irrevocably. I try my best to let them know every day that they are loved and wanted by me and their dad, that we will always be there to the point where it’s so predictable and boring. Becoming someone responsible for two people who have the most curious and inquisitive minds and the biggest and most open hearts, and for reasons I will probably never understand, unyielding love for me...made me want my mom so bad. 

It’s okay though. It’s okay. I’m growing! Part of growing is accepting things that can’t be changed. I said all of this to say that my 20s were filled with an immeasurable amount of tears. Reframe what is in my head, the words I know so well, the words I believed were true and still sometimes catch myself believing in those horrible words. Asking myself: “What do you want?” and answering myself, taking time to take care of me and my faulty brain. Taking care of my body that may not be perfect by magazine standards but it doesn’t mean I don’t deserve nourishing food. It doesn’t mean I deserve verbal, physical, emotional, mental, psychological abuse. My internal mantra during the hard times is: I am a person worthy and deserving of love. My name, Amanda, LITERALLY means worthy of love. Literally!! I tell myself that my mom and dad knew this first before anyone when they decided to name me Amanda. Thirty-ish years ago, Google didn’t exist. They broke out that thick baby name book and picked Amanda just for me. Whether they knew its meaning at that time or not, it’s fate. I am Amanda and I am worthy of love. And so are you!

I am so done with feeling like I need to be “fixed” or that I’m not “normal.” Or that there’s “something wrong with me.” Yes, there may be things wrong with me but I am still a person that is just trying to do her best. Maybe there are areas I could improve on. For instance, I want my body to be healthier and stronger but I’m done with the mindset that there is something “wrong” with my brain and my body. 

If you are a person that has loved, liked, respected me in the past or present, if you are a person that has cared for me even the tiniest amount, THANK YOU!

[just-panda]

TRIGGER WARNING: rape, abuse, hostages

Recently, I read this amazing book called Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland. It’s about the Cleveland kidnappings that happened years ago. If you don’t know about the Cleveland kidnappings (I didn’t!) basically what happened was in 2002, a man named Ariel Castro abducted a woman named Michelle Knight and kept her chained up in his house. Less than a year later, Ariel Castro abducted Amanda Berry as she was walking home from work. In 2004, he abducted Gina DeJesus when she was walking home from school. He kept all three women locked in his house until they escaped in 2013. Hope was written by Amanda and Gina so it covers their experiences. Michelle wrote her own book which I am going to read soon.

So, at first, this book was absolutely horrifying! These women went through so many horrible things. I won’t go into details in case anyone decides to read it but they were literally chained up for years while Ariel would rape them multiple times a day. They were also forced to cook and clean for him. 

I’m trying not to give too many details away but eventually the women were able to escape. It was a miracle because Ariel really thought of everything. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be locked in someone’s house for up to 10 years or more and then get out and live a normal life. But these women did it. They made a promise to themselves to survive their experiences so they can get back to their families and tell their stories.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about these women and what they went through in that house. It inspires me for sure. I felt the need to share. We, as humans, have the ability to adapt to even the most horrible situations. Imagine being a prisoner in someone’s house for 10 years for virtually not reason! Like how?? They were mentally, physically, emotionally, sexually, and verbally abused. I remember in certain parts of the story, they had opportunities to escape or scream really loud so maybe someone could hear them but they were too scared of Ariel and what he would do.

The scariest thing about something like this is that people go through a version of this everyday. Maybe not this extreme, like with chains involved, but a lot of people have been in relationships where they’re basically prisoners. And what do you do? You adapt. You wait. And eventually, hopefully, you leave when the time is right.

However, some victims of domestic violence or kidnapping, do not make it out alive. Let us take a moment to share a moment of silence for those victims’ families.

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08.23.2020 Douglas Dam

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08.23.2020 Red-spotted Purple Admiral

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Rejection & Self Worth

Before my life got crazy recently and all mixed up, I was dedicating fifteen minutes a day to writing in my journal. Some days I would start short stories and some days I would attempt to unpack some awful life events and work through them through writing and self reflection.

One day when I was writing about a particularly crappy life event that I don’t want to get into, I wrote a sentence that kinda stopped me in my tracks.

The sentence was: “I will not let the rejection of others define my worth.”

I was like, whoa. Okay. You may not think anything of this sentence but it definitely screamed at me. I feel like I slapped my own self in the face.

How many times in my life have I felt belittled because someone didn’t like me or didn’t give me the time of day? Countless. I think it’s natural for most people to feel crappy after rejection. But I have really beat myself up over certain rejections.

The thing is, some rejections I’ve had didn’t make sense to me. If I had a clue as to why these people rejected me then maybe I would feel a little bit better. I guess you could say, I never got closure from these situations and it’s bothered me. I’ve found myself saying “Well, I must be *insert horrible adjective here* since ______ doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore.”

Not necessarily though.

Am I perfect? No. Am I jerk sometimes? Absolutely. I know this. But I don’t necessarily deserve to beat myself up so badly to the point to where I’m depressed and not wanting to leave my bed.

Should I take my own advice? Sometimes...but it’s really hard. Some days, I feel like I was wired all wrong from birth because I’ve always been an anxious and self conscious person, which sometimes leads to being depressed. And some days, these crappy life events make me feel horrible and some days, I brush them off. I’m old enough to understand that life is a roller coaster. Some days are great and some days just plain suck. During the crappy days, things that are perfectly normal occurrences affect me so much more. And that’s what scares me.

I have done and said some horrible things. I have made countless mistakes. I have burned bridges. Sometimes, you guys would be terrified to see some of the thoughts in my head.

But I am still a person who is worthy of love and grace.

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Changes

Originally this blog was going to be a place for me to share my creative endeavors but I wanted to expand on that. Honestly, things have been crazy lately. As someone who has always struggled with mental health, it has taken a toll on me. I have not been inspired to do anything creative other than coloring in awhile. I want to get out of my funk but it’s hard. I’m also a person who hides things well, so keeping up the facade takes a lot of energy.

It’s scary for me to be vulnerable and open but I’m tired of putting on a smile when there are times I don’t feel like it. I’m trying to juggle a lot of things right now and at times, it feels like things may fall apart at any moment. I beat myself up a lot, which I don’t deserve and I know it’s ridiculous and destructive but I do it anyway.

So this blog will still be a creative blog. I’m slowly but surely getting back into my creativity. I will share that with you but I will share other things too.

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08.16.2020 American Crow

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I love Cooper’s Hawks!

A Cooper’s Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) assesses its surroundings shortly after making a kill.

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Love this <3

Erin Hanson

Cascade of Tulips

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05.10.2020 Gray Catbird

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05.02.2020 Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

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04.21.2020 Mama and baby Killdeer

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04.21.2020 Baby’s first birthday

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04.15.2020 Playtime

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03.21.2020 American Crow