The Photo by guest @AmberNorrgard

Please welcome today’s guest, prolific and talented poet and author, Amber Norrgard. We became fast ‘redhead’ friends on Triberr and social media, due to our sarcastic sense of humor. But underneath, you find real women with real-life issues. I’m so impressed  at Amber’s ability to share her struggles with such beautiful prose. And for those who like fiction, she writes some HOT erotica, too.

 

The Photo 

by Amber Norrgard

 

When I first published my work as an indie author, I had originally planned on having professional photos taken. But the photographer I had asked to take the photos kept not keeping the appointments we had scheduled. I figured I’d wait and find another photographer, and have the photos done at a later date. And then one afternoon, out to lunch and goofy on three-too-many stealth bomber margaritas, a friend snapped a photo of me laughing.

 

That’s the photo I use on my books, and any time I guest post on someone else’s website. It’s the photo I use on my Facebook and Google + profiles, and I occasionally switch to on my Twitter profile.

 

Because that photo shows a woman in love with her life, full of joy, looking like she is on top of the world and in control of things.

 

And I want to be her, for more than a five-minute space in time.

 

The harsh truth is that I have struggled with depression at various times in my life.

 

Whether the cause is DNA, post-partum issues, or situational depression isn’t important. What’s important is that feeling of desperation and fear that descends around me, making me feel as if I am in a bubble that no one can reach through to hold me together when I’m shaking apart with hurt.

 

I recently finished the book I began almost thirteen years ago about my search for my biological mother. And while it’s a positive story, one I hope that touches people, and a love story at the heart of it, there are still hard emotions to deal with as I wrote it.

 

So I struggled. Part of the writing process for the book included a trip to the city I was born in, some fifteen hundred miles away. After a week of speaking with family members about the book and viewing it in a newer, more painful light, as well as re-reading journal entries and emails, I was emotionally exhausted. The friend who was kind enough to let me stay with them that week sat down next to me at the table I was working at as I struggled against tears. “It’s okay to let go, you know,” came the gentle suggestion, and unlike my usually strong, stoic self, I did, sobbing in an attempt to let go of the hurt and the anxiety I was feeling.

 

But still. I struggle. Writing the book, which is the most important story I’ll ever tell, hurt. It was cathartic to do so, but at the same time? My heart breaks for that sixteen year-old-girl who was stuck in a bad situation and left to carry the burden of guilt and shame of being an unwed mother. My heart breaks for that girl who did not see her baby, who fought against the nurses trying to put her under anesthesia, which was considered the “kinder” way for her to give birth to the child she was forced to give away. My heart breaks for her wondering for twenty-four years if her child was okay.

 

My biggest fear is that the hurt, the depression, and the anxiety will once again claim me. That I’ll never fully become that woman in the photo that my friend snapped on an afternoon in June, where there was nothing but laughter being heard.

 

But it is my hope that one day, I will be her again.

 

And it won’t be for only five minutes.

 

You can find Amber on her website 

“Like” Amber on Facebook

 Follow Amber on Twitter

 Hear Amber on the TweepNation with Amber and Dionne Podcast or on The Lyrical Versification Podcast

 Buy Amber’s books on Amazon.com and Smashwords.com

 

 

 

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