Romanticize now :) -

Sadly, I think it’s hard for me to find anything magical about the digital photography process these days. I’m so burnt out on it, as someone who shot constantly and compulsively with all sorts of digital cameras from 2005-2019ish. I started really learning about photo technique just as the industry standard was transitioning from film to digital, too. Growing up on that cusp was hugely influential - digital was king. So I’m a digital grl to the core. I think and behave digitally. I frame and shoot excessively, I rush, I review photos on the LCD immediately, I have them uploaded to Lightroom within the day, and so on. Realistically, I’ll only ever see a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of photos I’ve made over the course of my life. Quantity over quality, for sure. High volume to a fault. If I’m not limited by a hard stopping point (ie. frame count, price), then I’m not gonna stop! (recurring theme)

Had I come into photography just a few years earlier, if my photo brain were wired to regard each frame as precious & finite, I would probably be a very different kind of photographer, and even a different kind of person, today!! I’m not even being dramatic, I swear!!! Last night I went on a disposable camera walk to check out a location I’d like to explore this summer, and yeah, it’s just a disposable, but knowing I had only 27 frames encouraged me to immerse myself in moments rather than skim over them. I got to play with the art of pausing, intentionally taking time to examine my surroundings, consciously noting light and color and vantage point, versus just click click clicking, scrolling through the results, clicking more, moving along, clicking more. It’s actually wild how different the two approaches are - almost entirely opposite to one another in a way. I’ve known this for a while, of course, but it’s only now that I’m reflecting on how formative that’s been for me. I dunno, it’s hard to put into words off the top of my head.

Anywayyyyy, disposables > everything this summer, but I don’t want to neglect my little Campsnap either! We just need to find her niche. Here are a few pics from the spring:

Back to basics, back to basics <3

Back to basics <3

Among addicts in recovery, it’s said that the age we started using our drug of choice is the age at which we halt emotionally, and unfortunately, this is absolutely the case with moi. I started drinking regularly exactly 20 years ago, June 2006 - the summer between my high school graduation and my freshman year of college. Unsurprisingly, it was a magical summer! I lifeguarded (sort of, lol) at a yacht club pool with my best friend and I was running like, 40 miles a week. My freckles were freckling and my legs were toned! There were house parties… weed, alcoholic bevs!… and I even had a cute summer fling. I’d been granted access to Facebook with my brand new .edu email address and was having a tiiiime creating photo albums to show off just how sun-kissed & drunk & fabulous all my friends and I were, pfft. (My alcoholism is 100% enmeshed with the pulls of early social media, because I am an old-school chronically online grl, circa ‘02, I didn’t stand a chance.) The Halcyon days, truly.

Emotionally, teenage Carrie is full of feelings, very sensitive, and very, very guarded. Blocked! I revealed little about the depths of my inner world to the people in my life, because I was afraid. Verbalizing the hugeness of my emotions would expose the reality that I was, in fact, emotional, and if there’s one thing I didn’t want to be, it was emotional. Emotional is crazy! No one wants a crazy girl, boys go for casual girls, chill girls, etc. I was impressionable to all that chatter, naturally. So I bottled up tight and pretended I didn’t care too much about anything even though I actually cared about everything. Incidentally, living this way did help shape me into an attentive friend, a compassionate listener who vibed as a sounding board for many. Nothing anyone told me elicited shock or judgment, I felt for it all, and I was truly awed by those courageous enough to express their vulnerability in my presence. This ability to be a safe space for others is ultimately a gift, but my history of simultaneous self-harm warps its purity, and that’s hard to acknowledge. Acknowledging blind spots is hard, waaah, I’d rather nottt.

18-year-old Carrie learned instantly that drinking made it much easier to handle my rawness & emotionality & fundamental shyness, because it numbed me just enough. I know now, of course, that I wasn’t handling a thing, but I didn’t have the bandwidth to make that connection back then (hell, I still barely do!). For those it hooks, the tragedy of addiction is that it does present as an easy solution to one’s inner-turmoil at first, and in my case, that solution “worked” for a very long time. So that means for a very long time, I was side-stepping, evading, deflecting, letting everything I felt and experienced, “positive” and “negative,” go unprocessed. I now have decades of this build-up stuck in my body, on top of the stuff I kept stowed away during my awkward adolescent years. A boy breaks your heart? Drink. It’s your birthday and you love your friends and you feel so blessed? Drink. You’re anxious? Drink. You want to crawl out of your skin? Drink. One of your US history or anthropology classes made you feel weird inside? Drink. Or god forbid, you’re angry? Drink. Drink drink drink! Drinkkkk! Blunt that edge bitch, drink!

To finally come up for air, re-emerging as someone entirely abstinent for the first time in 20 years, is hard. On some days, I might as well be back in high school when it comes to dealing with myself, I can be that emotionally stunted. I am quickly overwhelmed by feeling or remembering anything too strongly, period. (Another hallmark of addiction is the accumulation of trauma & shame, which deepens the internal conundrum.) I am confounded by those waves of intensity that trigger knee-jerk reactions to curl up & disappear, please people & count myself out, or… the most powerful reaction of all - to drink. My brain is completely maladapted for intoxication, hardwired down to its most primal parts to survive pickled in poisons. I’ll be pleasant, steady, communicative, and “normal” with a .43 BAC, but if I experience any sort of interpersonal conflict or discomfort while sober? Forget it, total meltdown, I’m not leaving the house unless it’s to get a drink to make this god forsaken life bearable!!!

Addiction deprived me of the chance to practice coping productively with life’s challenges on an age-appropriate timeline. I was all go-with-the-flow, lalala nothing bothers me, until I wasn’t. As that realization finally comes into focus, and the once-ironclad denial barrier breaks, I catch myself thinking and behaving in ways that are unhealthy or immature all the time. And I sure as hell no longer disguise my immaturity as well as I’ve managed to in the past. Because I can’t do the masking, double-life thing anymore. I can’t. I am too exhausted.

I can’t ingest a neurotoxin to make the discomfort around my humanness go away. For one, the discomfort never actually goes away, and also, I have reached the near-end stage of my addiction. If I pick up again, I’m closer to getting into serious trouble, or even dying, than I’ve ever been. I’ve survived more than 9 lives, I swear, the universe has protected me unnecessarily for far too long. I see that now. I can’t keep running from the 14, 16, 18-year-old Carries I’ve been hoping to drown. I can’t keep trying to outsmart & intellectualize the pain. It’s not fair to my body & soul, and it certainly isn’t fair to the people who have stuck with me these last couple years. Enough’s enough. So now, when faced with the choice between dying or feeling my feelings, I guesssssss I’ll give the feelings thing a try. The cure for the pain is in the pain, or so I’ve read. ;)

A note: I have a number of rough drafts that I’ve written about life in active addiction, and I can glean a lesson or two through most of them. I wrote this one when I was sober, and it was kind of as a joke to myself, but it’s really sad, and doesn’t present much to be gleaned. I want to throw it out there and never dwell upon this particular stretch of my life again, thanks!

~*~

The line between darkness and sunrise is thin,

A line I’ve been toeing for far, far too long,

I’m the victim and villain in a fight I can’t win.

I shake and I sweat, how it drains out my skin,

As the birds fucking shout their good-morning songs,

The line between darkness and sunrise is thin.

A quick fix to soften the blow of my sins

From this run-down bodega (I know that it’s wrong),

I’m the victim and villain in a fight I can’t win.

Doors open at 6 as I zombie-walk in

To nourish the demon that strings me along,

The line between darkness and sunrise is thin.

Girl crack that can open, revival begins!

A feeling I gamble my life to prolong,

I’m the victim and villain in a fight I can’t win.

I dance round and round and I feel my head spin

And there’s one golden moment as if I belong-

The line between darkness and sunrise is thin,

I’m the victim and villain in a fight I can’t win.

~*~

Okay, that’s it for villanelles. Maybe I’ll write a third one about recovery sometime!

It’s been a long 4 years, and I’ve suffered at times. The fact that I am alive and unscathed is pretty miraculous, because my addiction is brutal and it wants me dead. I’m suddenly in awe of my body and brain. I’m in awe of the many supportive loved ones who’ve endured alongside me as I’ve learned the hard way. & Now I have no choice but to be in awe of the human spirit, too. Chaos, beauty, chaos, beauty, lalala.

It’s been a fast 25 years. I’m 38?! I have a lottt of photos to prove it. A lot of miscellaneous paintings, sketches, collages, and sooooo, so much writing. All the unique, mischievous little memories. I’ve been meandering my whole adulthood, sometimes successfully, sometimes less so, and through it all, I’ve somehow continued to create. I need to pause right now and start going through all this raw material. Otherwise, I really may never.

In 2013, I wrote an essay on Tumblr (hehe) that I called, “Millennial Eyes,” questioning my fraught relationship with social media, digital photography, & mental health. I essentially set out to do then what I plan to do now: use creativity intentionally, productively (!!!) to engage in emotional & psychological processing. I felt that familiar pit in my stomach back then though, because I could identify all I wanted, but I still sensed it wasn’t my time. I didn’t wanna process shit, lol! I craved chaos! On some level, I knew I had further to fall, more to learn. And now here I am. I finally fucking did it. I landed myself at a major crossroads recently and snapped back stunned, wide-eyed. Like, damn. Time & time adrift, and the answer has stayed with me all along.

Cheers cheers cheers <3

& As always, sorry for partying! ;)

She’s a super fun, unproblematic party girl, although her tongue can get a liiittle bit sharp starting around 3, 3:30AM-ish, and she cries herself to sleep every Monday, sometimes Tuesday. She’s 33 years young, a beer girl, and when it comes to houseplants, she prefers pretty foliage over flowers. She was of courrrse an English major. & She only texts, never calls, so don’t even bother. Also, if you need flattering instagram pics, Lady Liver’s got you, but just remember she’s never made a Tiktok. Not even one! She has like a million best friends. You’d love her.

& Lady Liver is not AI!! She’s the real deal.

Happy weekend to all! <3 Carrie

NYC, 2014: We loved a Bagatelle-to-Le Bain brunch lmaooo, take me backkk but actually don’ttt, I’m going into mild-moderate alc withdrawal just thinking about itt. Youth really is a superpower, huh?!

~*~*~

Boston & NYC, 2012: A happy year in my life! I felt bold, curious, inspired by everything, and my boyfriend at the time, Pedro, was a laid back non-drinker and a good influence. :)

~*~*~

New Orleans, 2018: Another happy year in my life. I trained for a marathon, and it all went so smoothly! & My boyfriend at the time, Andy, and I used to always have people around. Haven’t looked at these disposables in a long, long time <3 I miss everything about New Orleans.

~*~*~

New Haven, 2022: The beginning of the enddd, dun dun dunnn. I knew it deep down, as these pics were happening. They feel eerily quiet when I see them now. I can’t put my finger on why, but maybe that’s okay. I find them beautiful, looking back.

~*~*~

Exploring old photos makes my heart ache (photos from these years ^ in particular), and this time was no exception. But I can simultaneously experience the ache of nostalgia & the gift of remembering. These little snapshots remind me of how full my life has been, and how grateful I am for every person, every place I’ve encountered. And also, I must never stop taking pictures!! I mean, I’ve tried, trust me. It never seems to stick.

I broke up with my gentle, loving Boston boyfriend on a whim because I felt this calling to do bigger things in life, such as move to New York, become a photographer, and party. Entirely my decision, like a shot to the foot, I regretted it immediately. So, all alone on my 2nd or 3rd day in the City, I figured, what the hell, let’s have a drink about it. And have a drink, I did – straight from the magnum bottle of cheap red wine like it was water, honey. Clock strikes noon, take a sip. 12:01, another! You miss your boyfriend, you deserve this. I rummaged through my suitcase in search of something cute to wear. My hairline curled with sweat.

I can still feeeeeeel those first few months in the City. Don’t people say the body keeps score? Don’t they?! There’s this one memory especially that lives and breathes on, frenetic even after all these years: July 2012, some mid-summer’s weeknight when I pilgrimaged from a Bud Light soaked bar on the Upper East Side to my little apartment on 143rd in Harlem, because the night was young-ish, and I felt like it. Fueled by adrenaline, allowance, and of course – alcohol! – I set my iPod on repeat to songs like “Dancing On My Own” or “Call Me Maybe,” and headed northwest across the Island, electrified.

Was I crazy? Marching along after-hours in scuffed red heels or gold glitter flats and some flimsy sundress of the moment? An explorer at heart, a secret lone she-wolf, I just wanted to peer into the quieter crevices of the City that never sleeps. I didn’t sleep much myself these days anyway, and I could walk forever.

So forever I walked, slipping anonymously through El Barrio’s murky glow, my face all freckles and rosy cheeks still soft with baby fat, smiling twinkly-eyed at strangers who’d smile back, usually. It seemed right at the time, like I was growing out my soul, like the City was encouraging me to mingle with the shadows, hinting that my callings were right around that next block, or just beyond the horizon, maybe.

The clock struck dawn as I reached my tiny, un-air-conditioned rental room, my first New York. I got into bed and a persistent little mosquito kept buzzing around my head, so I couldn’t sleep, but that didn’t matter. Sorry for partying, right?

Back then, my pet-peeve was morning people. I silently raged at the sunrise and its early-workout-money-making-girl-boss types with their boring, handsome fiancés reminding me of everything I was not. In those days, I set my alarm for sunset.

Gratitude 2: my physical health and strength

Gratitude 3: my dad’s peony garden is blooming, yayyyy

Happy Sunday, you beautiful souls.

~*~

It’s a beautiful day to self-destruct

The sea looks flat, the sky’s too clear

Let’s take things south, let’s test my luck.

What of my health or good conduct

When cloaked in warmth from that fourth beer?

It’s a beautiful day to self-destruct.

A quick break from The Man’s construct

To blunt my mind, to disappear

Let’s take things south, let’s test my luck.

To hell with normal, I run amok

I’m wild, windblown, lawless, cheers!

It’s a beautiful day to self-destruct.

Then midnight hits, like lightning struck

I hold my breath, jump from the pier

Let’s take things south, let’s test my luck.

Washed up and shaky, come dawn, I’m fucked

A pill, big sip, stave off the Fear

It’s a beautiful day to self-destruct,

Let’s take things south, let’s test my luck.

~*~

I’ve moved around a lot over the years, and I’m not one to hold on to [physical 😳] stuff, but there’s something about these f’n journals! I haven’t read back through most of them tbh, because cringe, of course. Yet I continue to carry them with me, year after year, apartment after apartment, crammed into a worn out Vera Bradley tote bag that refuses to die (iykyk). They’re like, these little time capsules that I can’t bring myself to burn. Odds & ends from eras looong, long gone. The handwriting, the slang, the worn bindings & yellowed pages, ugh, I’m overly sentimental about these sorts of things. I truly can’t help it. I came out the womb marinated in nostalgia, I swear! ❄️

Recovery-wise, I could probably glean some insight re: my puzzling mental health situation over the years, if only I could muster the courage to look back with self-compassion. The neuroses, the “secrets” of my formative days - they’re all on record!! I was particularly… prolific during my adolescence (lol), and also throughout the duration of an abusive relationship that changed me, in some ways, when I was 26, 27, 28. And then, there was the move from NYC to New Orleans, and 2020, and back to CT, and the journey into social work, and the heartbreak of a lifetime, and the alcoholic decline, and everything in between, all the way up until now.

How, how, how am I still that Carrie who started putting pencil to paper almost 30 years ago? There are entire lifetimes between me and her. Ups & downs, cities & states, schools & jobs, boyfriends & friends, successes & failures, sickness & health. All the moods, all the memories, so varied and vast, everything and nothing, come and gone. The common thread that binds it all together, that makes me who I am despite life’s ephemerality, I suppose, is in the writing. Does that make sense?

I was in 6th grade and AOL instant messenger was this big new thing. Even today, I feel visceral excitement recalling the clamoring dial-up sounds, the color-coded ~about me~ profiles & ever-changing screen names, the audio of a door creaking open or slamming shut to signify a peer (a boy) logging on or offline. (Would he IM me, would he IM me not?! 🦋) An addict waiting to happen, I guess, I was drawn to the potential lurking in those little chat-boxes like a moth to a blinding flame, utterly bewitched. The adolescent-internet days really were the wild west, looking back, and I, the perfect guinea pig.

I’ve been trying & trying to make sense of my experience as a 1988 baby for close to 20 years by now. What’s the point of being conscious anyway, and why does it have to be so mind-boggling?!!! For every version of Carrie who’s lived in the real world, there have been alter-ego Carries who’ve lived both in my imagination and online, for better or for worse, it was a journey well-documented over the course of my youth, lol. Ahhh the millennial experience, at once fragmented and overly connected. How am I to reconcile all these bits and pieces of myself that I’ve been creating and collecting since childhood, really? A retrospective: let’s get into it 🤭❄️😘

It’s like livejournal all over again, or tumblr, god damn! Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose, right? Same Carrie screaming & taking photos into the void, different decade. Let’s see where this goes, if anywhere, I never really know. <3