Y’all, my heart.
I love seeing Lucy play music with her GrandDonnie.
With everything going on, moments like this, they’re just so sweet and wonderful to share. And I think it’s safe to say, this kid will definitely be a musician. It’s going to be so fun helping her find her instrument and watching her learn. 😊
Well, I’m not really sure where to go from here.
The Accutane works. My face was clear all throughout the holidays and it felt like I got a little bit of my life back, and y’all, when I say that was amazing. Just, wow.
But the side effects. Oh my God, the side effects.
So, let me preface by saying that everyone is different, and everyone reacts to medicines differently, and I don’t want to scare anyone away from a treatment that might work very well for them. But I want to share my experience, just in case anyone needs validation, or has questions, or is just curious. This is definitely not the update I wanted to give.
Let’s start here. My face cleared up! Yay! My skin also dried out everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Every mucus membrane, and nothing I did to help with that side effect (lotion, an Omega-3 supplement, changing soaps and showering habits) actually helped at all. The dryness, though, I could handle. It was expected and wasn’t so bad. Well, not on my face at least. It was less than tolerable in other places.
Which brings me to my eyes. About two months into the treatment, after my dermatologist and I had agreed to up my dose (as is standard), my eyelids just went insane. None of my glands wanted to work. Everything just stopped up, and my eyes got all red and gross and watery, and my eyelids got really inflamed and swollen, and my lashes were all full of flakes and tear residue. And long story short, after a weekend visit to the eye doctor, I can confirm I now have ocular rosacea as well. Because Type 1 and Type 2 were not enough. Sigh. One steroid drop prescription and treatment plan later, and I’m doing a little better. But my eyes still aren’t normal, and I’m real tired, y’all, real tired of wearing my glasses instead of my contacts. Lucy is happy, though, and tries to pull them off of my face a few times a day.
Even the eyes, though, I think I could handle. Maybe. But I experienced some weird mental symptoms, too. My dermatologist did not think they were Accutane-related, but they coincided with the bump in my dose. My anxiety skyrocketed, and I started to have really strange, not-me thoughts about the hopelessness of life. I never think that way. I love life.
And I love my hair, which is now really thin at my hairline. I just don’t know if it’s worth it to lose my hair to clear my face, you know? They say that it’s temporary, but it’s very visible, and it makes me very uncomfortable.
I’m just generally uncomfortable these days, actually. My joints got super achy, and I’m also having some abdominal pain and really awkward, painful GI issues. Again, can’t say if they’re caused by the Accutane, but things are certainly not the same in my gut since I started the medicine.
About a month ago, my dermatologist recommended that I knock my dose back down. I tried that. No changes. So, I tried taking the pill only every other day. I still wasn’t happy about the side effects. So, I’ve just stopped the medication for now. Unfortunately, my face has started to break out again, especially around my mouth, which makes me feel so pretty. But I’m just not certain I want to continue. I’ve got an appointment at the end of the month to check in, and I plan to discuss all of this. We’ll see where we go from there.
I’ve suspected for a long time that there’s an underlying cause to this rosacea – hormones, maybe, or something to do with my gut, or maybe even my thyroid. Maybe that will be my next step. But for now, I’ll just be here, obsessively applying lotion and hoping that my stomach settles down and I can wear my contacts again one day.
I wonder how many times this year I will be called upon to grieve.
How many times will I grieve for the world, for senseless violence and gleeful cruelty and hatred turned into policy? And how many for my corner of it?
My uncle died yesterday after a short battle with aggressive cancer. He was a good man, though like so many others he wasn’t at his best all the time. I remember a year when he pretended to pour beer on my birthday cake. I also remember singing with him, seeing him smile and laugh and just be there with our family at my parents’ basement karaoke bar, which a family friend lovingly titled “Club Doozie’s.”
That family friend passed away in the fall, after a long battle with aggressive cancer.
Graham lost his aunt in the summer. Her daughter, sick in the end-stages of aggressive cancer, made it to the funeral, and died only a few days later.
And the big one. My dad.
My dad has cancer. I don’t know that he’d like me putting it out there, and to be fair it isn’t my news or my diagnosis to share. But he is mine. And my fear and my grief belong to me, too. He’s never even broken a bone, despite years of sports and motorcycles. His prognosis is good, as far as we know, but to see him struggling with this, to know that cancer might take him from me, feels like something out of a story. Not something out of my own life.
It’s the shock, I think, always. Even if you see it coming. It’s the shock, that moment of “this can’t be happening,” that drags you into the dark.
Right now, we’re living through a regime that wants us shocked. They want us so wrapped up in the news cycle, in atrocities and trauma and broken laws, that we don’t have the space for any other reaction. But grief is a reaction.
Grief is resistance.
To grieve in the face of such abject and inhuman malice, to be soft, to feel pain, that is resistance. To be sad when they want you to be scared, and to feel tears when they want you to feel your heart beat fast in your chest, that is resistance.
And grief is strength. To look sadness and tragedy in the eye and keep going, to feel deeply even when it hurts, to allow yourself that time and space and know that you have to feel it to get through it, that is strength.
This is not the post I’d intended to write today. Or, yesterday, as it were, but the day got away from me. I was going to write about my word of the year for 2026. It’s “LISTEN,” by the way.
But I guess it still works, doesn’t it? I’m up at 4:00 a.m. with a cold and a sinus infection, unable to sleep, taking this quiet time to write, listening to what my brain and my soul need – to get this down on paper, to get it out of my head. I’m listening to my grief, and letting it take its course. When I feel a little better, I’ll listen to my heart, and allow it to lead me this year – to the people I love, to the life I’m building, to the quiet, fallow places that help you grow.
And on that journey, I’ll keep listening to my grief, too. I’ll listen, and I’ll let it open me up like a wound and I’ll bleed out sadness and love, and I’ll share that love with everyone I can.
Because what else can any of us do, in a time like this?
We took Lucy to see Santa over the weekend, and well…
She wasn’t scared or anything, but just look at that face!
Bored. So bored. Just utterly unimpressed.
For comparison, this is how she looks at Merlin:
I mean, everyone should find someone who looks at them the way Lucy looks at Merlin.
And the funniest thing about it is, she’s obsessed with all things Christmas and Santa right now. I think maybe it just didn’t click that there was the big guy. But I bet it will next year!
Our beautiful sunshine girl turned two over the weekend.
Two magical years with this phenomenal little human. Graham and I feel so lucky to be Lucy’s parents.
We did a small get together with friends yesterday to celebrate. We had cake.
And a pizza party. Lucy loves pizza.
And her Papa Bill. (Isn’t this the sweetest picture ever? Oh my goodness.)
I am just amazed by her. She’s so smart and brave and curious, and she teaches me to be in the moment every day. I wasn’t sure, for a long time, if I wanted to be a mother at all, and I’m grateful – so, so grateful – that I’ve got Lucy in my life.
This is the season for giving thanks, and I’m thankful for my Lucy Elizabeth – that she’s strong and healthy and happy, and that I get to watch her grow up.
My heart is very full.
It’s how I’ve looked at the world for over two years now.
It started slow, a couple of months before Lucy was born. Just an irritating red spot on my cheek. No fun, but not a huge deal, and I thought it would probably resolve itself after pregnancy.
Spoiler alert! It did not.
You see it, right? Right there on my cheek, in one of my favorite pictures with Lucy. Sigh.
And despite several different treatments and lifestyle and diet changes, it got much, much worse.
SO. MUCH. WORSE.
This was late October. Less than a month ago.
So now here I am, sitting in my writing chair, at nearly 40 years old, discovering skin care and (GASP) Accutane for basically the first time in my life.
Let me back up.
I’ve always had pretty clear skin. It’s been quite a blessing, I know, that I haven’t had major issues with acne or dark circles or unevenness or scarring or anything. I feel lucky. Or, at least, I did. I’ve never had to think very hard about skin care. Some cleanser, a good moisturizer, maybe a toner and a fun face mask every so often. And makeup? Eh, just some powder and blush and mascara got me through for a long, long time.
My entire world has changed.
It’s exhausting, being so uncomfortable in your own skin. The rosacea looks terrible, sure, but it feels worse. It stings and itches and burns, and often at night, it’s so bad that I can’t find a comfortable spot to rest my cheek on my pillow. Add to that, I’m afraid that it will never go away. I’m genuinely afraid that in every single picture, for all of Lucy’s childhood, my face will be either bright red and covered in inflamed spots, or that it will be so caked with makeup that I can’t really recognize myself.
Which brings me to now, back to my writing chair, watching Lucy nap beside me without a care in the world.
After every treatment and lifestyle change failed, my dermatologist suggested Accutane. I started it on October 20th. It’s a scary medicine, with lots of potential side effects, a few of which – the dryness, oh my gosh the dryness – I’m feeling pretty acutely.
But y’all, it’s working.
It’s the only thing in nearly two years that’s actually worked.
I’m cautiously optimistic, and hoping I can finish the six-month course of treatment. I’m hoping that it’s a long-term cure, though I know that’s not always the case. And I’m finally starting to feel like my old self again. I can wear makeup and it looks nice and not like housepaint! I can go out without makeup and not worry about scaring small children and nervous pets!
And I know what people say: No one pays that much attention.
But I pay attention. I don’t consider myself a vain person. But two years of not liking what you see in the mirror, that takes a toll. And I’m so ready for something, something to work.
So, fingers crossed. And if anyone is going through something similar and is interested in updates, I’m happy to post them! I might do a monthly check-in here. I don’t know. But I do know that for the first time since before Lucy came, my face finally feels like mine again.
And I’m so thankful (because let’s be seasonally appropriate, right?) for that.
From our family to yours. 😊
May you always believe in magic…and in friends, frolicking, harmless mischief, and the utterly restorative power of candy.
(We’re the Belcher kids from Bob’s Burgers. It’s okay if you didn’t know. No one else did either. Lol.)
Well, after a near miss from Hurricane Erin and a surprisingly and fortunately quiet Atlantic hurricane season, we saw some storm action yesterday and last night. And y’all, I don’t even know what to say.
This was not presented as a big thing. It was neither hurricane nor tropical storm. It did not have a name. But the weather system that rolled through Virginia Beach over the course of yesterday dumped seven inches – SEVEN INCHES – of rain on us. And there was wind. I think the news mentioned gusts of 59 miles per hour.
It was a big thing, as it turns out, and I didn’t even know to be anxious about it.
Don’t worry, though. I got there.
Watching our back patio flood and a small river develop down our driveway, yeah, that wasn’t fun for me. But it was the water creeping up our front yard, closer and closer to our house, that really got me.
It doesn’t look like much in the picture, I know. You could easily say I was overreacting. (I might even agree with you.) But that is solidly three or four feet of water on our fence line, and it just kept rising. I was not in a good mood, and I didn’t sleep well last night.
Thankfully, it’s receded today and things have dried out, and I’m feeling better.
But, again, this was not even a tropical storm. IT WASN’T EVEN A TROPICAL STORM.
Coastal living is something, you guys. I guess I should just file this under “Things I’ll Adjust To.” Right? RIGHT???
My name is Katie, and I have animated conversations – by myself, out loud – between characters I made up. Often on my porch swing, where all the neighbors can see. (I’m sure they’re not paying attention.)
Y’all, writers are weird.
Or maybe it’s just me?
Am I late to this party? Yeah, probably. But I was sitting outside last night, thinking about a scene I wanted to write, and acting out the dialogue – very energetically – and I thought, “You know, if someone didn’t know you, they might think you’re not all there.”
When Graham first saw my carefully chaotic assortment of mostly empty notebooks, I think he found it kind of charming. Now…well, now he knows me well enough to mostly ignore it. But also wonders why I need so many and why they all need to live in a pile on my desk but also beside the bed and in the living room and behind the driver’s seat of my car just in case I hear something funny in public and want to remember it.
He’ll never get used to the questions, though. Random questions, all the time, especially to people I just met. I’ve gotten pretty good at fitting them into the flow of a good chat, though. Like, if you met me, you probably wouldn’t even realize I’m gently interrogating you for the purposes of storytelling. Unless you’re a writer, too. Because then you’re probably doing the same thing.
I can’t remember the moment I developed most of these little weirds. Was I always like this? Probably. I used to get in trouble a lot for daydreaming, even when I was really little. I continue to view daydreaming as my superpower.
Oh, and my coffee’s gone cold. That happens a lot, too.
So anyway, are you normal, or do you too collect and hoard notebooks like they’re a finite resource?
Because if you do – if you, too, are weird like me – we should probably be friends.
Well, Hurricane Erin has come and gone. Or, rather, it’s gone and it was never really here to begin with.
I’m not unhappy about that at all. Sometimes, anticlimactic is good.
It’s my first hurricane season as an official resident of Virginia Beach, and though I’m not too worried generally, I admit I was concerned about and disconcerted by all the watches and warnings that accompanied Erin’s not-landfall here. As a lifelong mountain critter – if not in body than certainly in spirit – I find the ocean intimidating. Coastal storms were something that, growing up, we actually talked about pretty often. You know, as in: “Gee, sure glad and grateful we aren’t dealing with that.”
And now here I am, living very close to the big water, right on the coast. It’s a funny old life.
At any rate, I am quite grateful that the most we saw of Erin in our neck of the woods – er, our stretch of the sand – was just a little bit of a breeze, some higher than usual high tides, and rough waves.
The surfers had a great time. Waves in Virginia Beach are normally pretty calm, so these were fun to watch. From a distance.
I know the Outer Banks in North Carolina dealt with more, and I’ve heard Norfolk had some flooding. But as storms go, we got lucky. And I’m hoping we stay lucky through this season. Because as much as I love new experiences, I definitely don’t have “See a hurricane up close and personal” on my 2025 bingo card.
A Virginia Writer's Diary 