Waiting for life's harvest

The day after my wedding, before my husband and I headed to our honeymoon destination, we planted a garden in small plot of dirt at the side of our house.

Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, we planted a variety of delectable veggies. And we did together on our first day of marriage.

In my mind it was symbolic and sacred. Logan probably thought of it as the practical thing to do. He finally had time off from work and if we waited until after we got back to from the honeymoon to plant the garden it might be too late in the season.

To me, these seeds symbolized much more than the produce that we would eat that summer. They represented the journey that we had just begun with our marriage.

When you plant a garden you have to water it, pick out the weeds, help your seeds become the plants they are intended to be. The same is true marriage. It is work. You have make time for each other, nurture your relationship, and help your partner live up to his or her potential. Marriage is work, but the fruits of a good marriage make all the work worth while.

In my own marriage, we are still somewhat in the honeymoon phase. Thankfully, our relationship has done much better than the crops did last year. As a gardener, there just isn’t much you can do during one of the worst droughts in Kansas history. We survived the drought but unfortunately our tomatoes didn’t.

For the past year my marriage has somewhat been in cruise control as we’ve enjoyed quality time together at home and random road trips. Things like unemployment, sickness, and an entire KU football season with only one win didn’t seem to shake us.

But lately I worry that we may have entered a drought. And I worry that this drought is self-imposed by me and my stupid depression, and stupid medication changes, and even stupider ideas about getting pregnant. (Full disclaimer I do not think trying to get pregnant is stupid. I just feel like the effort that is required for me to get pregnant is stupid. It should be much easier. I just know it.)

Apparently I went off my anti-depressant a little too quickly. But I didn’t think it was the wrong thing to do because I was feeling hypomanic, which is bad, really bad. You can read my last blog for details on that.

In the past week my mood has went from the utmost high (I was totally ready to start my own publication, which in my defense I still think I have a good business plan) to the lowest of lows. These last three days the only time I am able to stop crying is when I am around other people or when I am running. I know three days doesn’t sound very long, but keep in mind Jesus was in the tomb for the three days. Some theologians believe he spent those days in Hell. I believe if you ask Jesus if those were a long three days he would say yes. He would probably say, hell yes.

So the last three days have been rough. Not just on me, but on Logan as well. I mean no one likes to come home to a crying wife. Particularly if she is crying for absolutely no reason. And I imagine he feels about as powerless as I do in this.

I have thought about going back on my anti-depressant. I have phone calls out to the doctor. The truth is I don’t know what to do. Because this stupid SSRI is the least of my worries. I cannot fathom how I will be able to be off lithium, even it it’s just for the first trimester and the time it takes for us to conceive. And there is as much chance of me being off lithium long enough to breast feed as there is the Chiefs winning the 2014 Super Bowl. And yes, I know that breast milk is best.

The truth is, I don’t know if I can do this. I fell ashamed, so ashamed.

I don’t know if I can conceive a child because I am dependent on a mood stabilizer to treat my bipolar type 1 disorder.

There I said it. And in some way I feel little less ashamed. 


I remember when I was tutoring third-graders at elementary school in Philly. One of my students would always say he felt so ashamed when he got a flash card wrong.

“I’m so ashamed,” he would say in his adorable third grade voice as he buried his hands in his arms.

“It’s okay,” I would reassure him. “Try again.”

When he got the problem right the smile on his face was priceless.

“I’m not ashamed anymore,” he declared.

Even thinking about that little boy’s face makes me want smile all these years later.

And as write this blog, confessing my fears, I feel like shouting from the rooftops.

“I’m not ashamed anymore!”

My husband and I are tilling this garden we call our life. And we really don’t know what the fruits of our labor will be. But we do know is that we love each other, we love God, and we are not going to live feeling ashamed about things beyond our control.