Don’t forget what you don’t see: The incomplete story of Instagram photos

July was a big travel month for Tim and me. I flew to Australia by myself, stayed on a boat in the Great Barrier Reef, and then went to Sydney to await Tim’s arrival later for a business trip. We stayed a week in Fiji afterward before heading home. In total, I was gone about 3 weeks.

My instagram account had never been more beautiful, filled with professional-grade photos of colorful fish and koalas and the iconic Opera House. I checked into amazing restaurants on Foursquare and drank pina coladas by the ocean. But the truth is, the trip started off on a really rough note.

My flight to Australia was actually 4 flights. Yes, there are plenty of direct, nonstop flights between SFO and SYD. But I used my Alaska Airlines miles to get there, and the routes were most inconvenient. I was flying SJC-SEA-YYV-SYD. Then, once I arrived in Sydney, I was taking a different airline up to Cairns for my Great Barrier Reef excursion. When Tim dropped me off at the airport, as I was waiting to check my bag at the Alaska counter, the fire alarm went off and the whole airport had to evacuate. It was a false alarm, thank God, but I think it may have been a bad omen. As I sat at my gate waiting to board, I got an email saying I’d been upgraded. Fantastic! I have MVP status on Alaska, so this is not unusual, but this time it was a first class upgrade. (I was already upgraded to their premium seats.) It was a short flight, but I was happy about the chance to start my trip off on a sweet note. When the first class passengers were called to board, I scanned my ticket. But the gate agent said I needed to see the folks at the counter. I waited in line so long that by the time I was helped at the counter, the whole plane had boarded. And it turns out, the computer system had an “error” and that first class seat was given away already. (They gave it to the guy in front of me in line, btw. I heard them assign it to him and say that he was getting an upgrade. So yeah, that seat was NOT BOOKED until one second ago.) I was cranky and demanded reparation and later got an email offering me a $75 credit. Whatever, it’s something, I’ll move on.

The layover in Seattle was uneventful, and I boarded our little plane to YYV. My layover in Vancouver was amazing: I went to a really nice lounge, had really fantastic wine, and showered before the long-haul flight. I was in Qantas Premium Economy, which is a really nice experience for the price, and the flight was so easy and fantastic — and I actually slept WELL. It was all-around great. And then, when we landed, I heard “Passenger Delzell, please see a gate agent.”

As I exited the plane, I asked someone why they were calling my name. Turns out, my bags had been left in Vancouver due to their customs process and it was arriving in an hour on an Air Canada flight. No big deal, as my next flight was still 6+ hours away. So, per instruction, I went to the Qantas baggage counter to let them know I was waiting for my bag. Well, the agent there saw it wasn’t arriving until later that afternoon. I was already going to be on my way to Cairns by then, so she took my hotel info and was going to have it sent there for me.

I had a premonition that my bag could get lost since I had such a wonky flight route, so thankfully I packed spare clothes and all my toiletries in my carry-on. I showered at SYD and relaxed in a lounge that had a free massage chair (!!!). I flew to Cairns and relaxed in my hotel room.

Hours went by and still no suitcase. I found a phone number on the luggage info I was given, so I tried to call. My foreign cell phone wasn’t able to dial the type of number, so I had to use the hotel phone. ($$$$$.) I then spent hours on the phone trying to figure out where my bags were. Turns out, they were STILL in Canada. It went from being one hour away, to a few hours away, to no reunion in sight. I was pissed, and the customer service rep took all my contact info and promised to keep me in the loop.

Okay, so I was without my luggage. I had planned ahead and had my toiletries and my credit cards, so I was fine for the next day or two. But here’s the problem: I had one more day in Cairns before I boarded a live-aboard boat. I was out of clothes, so I washed the two outfits I had with me using the hotel’s free body wash, and I hung it to dry and slept totally in the nude, praying my clothes would be dry enough to wear in the morning. I had no confidence that I would be receiving my suitcase anytime soon, so I decided to go out that day and buy a swimsuit ($160), sunscreen, a new shirt, a bra, and underwear. I tried to enjoy my limited time in Cairns, but it was tough. I felt stressed, upset, and increasingly worried my luggage would never make it to me. And then, as I was walking through the lovely Botanic Gardens, I got a call from an unknown number. It was the same customer service rep, with a flight number that my luggage was on (it was already in Sydney — this was a flight headed to Cairns!). It was supposed to arrive that afternoon, and of course it didn’t get there until after midnight. I cried tears of joy when it arrived and spent a few minutes just looking at my belongings, picking them up and being so happy to see these items as though they were relics from my past. (It was Marie Kondo-esque, how much I held my items and spent mental energy on treasuring them.)

Starting off my trip that way was stressful and I don’t recommend it. But I share this now because social media doesn’t tell the story of how I lost two days of my vacation to phone calls and hand-washing my clothing. The disastrous bits of the trip were more than compensated — with natural beauty, fun catchups with Aussie friends, culture, food, and later, an upgrade to a gorgeous suite in Fiji — and overall the trip was one of my most favorites in memory. But all those Instagrammable moments came with a price, and that price was wearing clothes that smelled like cheap hotel soap and hanging up my underwear in the shower while I slept. (Oh, and by the way, the only shoes I had this whole time: a very bold statement sneaker that did NOT go with the rest of my clothing. I still am a little afraid to wear them after the scarring experience of having to wear them with the wrong outfits in Cairns. Why didn’t I pack a pair of flip flips in my carry-on??)

So while the photos I posted were taken in times of happiness, the trip wasn’t solely defined by underwater wildlife encounters and tropical sunsets. Life’s not perfect. Sometimes you’re caught without a pair of underwear to spare and you gotta deal. Remember that as Christmas approaches and people share what amazing gifts they got, or destinations they visited, or the inevitable dozen engagements that will be announced in the next week. There are times of excitement and blessing, but there’s also times of having to wear your really weird high top sneakers with your dress, and just because it wasn’t posted online doesn’t mean a lot of people didn’t see you wearing them.

Remember when people constantly posted cryptic things on social media?

There are several applications that let you go back in time through your photos and social media. Facebook advertises a “look back on your memories from a year ago”; TimeHop allows looks into what happened on this day one, two, or more years in the past; Google Photos often reminds me to check out a series of photos I took (mostly of my cats) last year. For the most part, I enjoy remembering what happened in years previous. For example, last week was my one-year wedding anniversary, so it’s a really great memory! But on any other average Tuesday, I’m not guaranteed to have such a fun or interesting walk down memory lane.

The number one thing that apps like TimeHop have taught me: I was a complete idiot a few years ago. I constantly find photo captions from my years in college that are so puzzlingly cryptic and veiled. After college, in the era of Instagram, I posted the stupidest and most low-quality photos into what is now a pretty beautiful and lively feed. I recently discovered that 6 years ago I had posted a screenshot of a tweet by obscure former Bachelorette competitor cast member Jef Holm (Jef with one F, Emily’s season, aka the only season I watched ever) saying that he was going to Charleston with Chris Harrison (the host of the Bachelor/ette franchise) followed by a golf emoji. And as I posted that screenshot of a very unimportant (to me) person, I captioned it with absolutely NO explicit meaning. Observe:
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My caption: “Time to get real about my not so secret love for the bachelorette. Though there is a golf emoji, there’s no way this means… PLEASE ADVISE”

Like, WHAT? What does this nonsense even mean? Here’s the information I can gather. 1) I’m attempting to say that I like the Bachelorette. But I didn’t really. I watched it once with some women from my sorority with whom I was living over the summer in college. 2) I’m assuming that it’s a little bit shameful to like the Bachelorette because I refer to it as secret (or rather, not-so). 3) I acknowledge there’s a golf emoji. No further comment necessary here. 4) There’s no way this means WHAT? It drives me absolutely nuts how often I posted cryptic, unfinished thoughts like this. I must have expected people to read my mind. Or maybe I thought it was a manic-pixie-dream-girl type thing to allude to my meaning without saying it.

Present day Amanda would never assume people can read her mind. Present day Amanda writes thorough captions describing how she felt, or what she likes about the image, or something that made her think. She avoids ellipses that trail off into nothing. It’s so frustrating to me that this is how I lived my public, in-writing, forever-saved-in-the-dredges-of-the-internet life.

Sometimes I wonder if my lengthy, thought-out Instagram captions are being judged or are on the receiving end of some eye rolls. But looking through the way I used to post on social media — so cryptic, so strange, so pointless and guarded and not letting people actually know my thoughts — I thoroughly prefer to write my exact feelings and thoughts as I do today. I like being able to share and be vulnerable. For so long in my life, I was rarely open to letting people actually know me. I tried to do what I thought was cool. I tried to make myself sound like I had hobbies or interests or thoughts similar to whatever guy I had a crush on, or some coworker I wanted to befriend. It was a long journey to learn what it really means to “be yourself,” and it involved a lot of appointments with a therapist. And in those appointments, I wasn’t discussing how I couldn’t be vulnerable. No, we discussed specific problems I was having at work or with a certain person. And eventually by working on those areas of my life, it opened up my ability to be myself. I hate looking back on the years I spent trying to be cool, sound cool, do things I didn’t want to do, people I tried to impress. But I wouldn’t be embarrassed to run into those people again, because I am so obviously not that cryptic, closed-off idiot of yesteryear. People are dumb sometimes, but sometimes they stop being dumb. I’m a proud reformed idiot, and I’m here to share with you my lengthy, personal Instagram captions, whether you want them or not. ♦

Why I decided to change my name

It’s been almost a year since I married the cutest guy in the world. (He’s going to hate that I put that in writing, but I say it to him about 4000 times per day so what’s the difference?)

A couple weeks before our wedding, we went over to the applicable government office and applied for our marriage license. I was still undecided and had been successfully avoiding committing to any sort of name change. When we were speaking to the county clerk’s office, though, they asked if I wanted a new name put on the marriage license. I panicked and got a huge spike of anxiety. The person who was assisting us mentioned that I never actually had to change my name to whatever I put on the license, which gave me peace, so I said that he could put my husband’s last name in place of my own.

Looking back on it, I truly wish that I had premeditated my name change more. It was so difficult for me to seriously think about it, because every time I did, I’d get anxious and sweaty and need air and had to stuff it back down. (This is not a healthy way to deal with anxiety.) I still can’t put a finger on exactly why it gave me such a visceral reaction. I don’t necessarily think it was negative or a sign that I didn’t actually want to change my name. I’ve always planned on changing my last name to my husband’s — before I even knew Tim. I’m pretty progressive overall and a thousand percent hate that the practice began essentially like transferring the title of a car — from parental “ownership” to husband “ownership” — but I also really love the symbolism of having the same name as a family unit. Plus, my husband and I very much have an equality-focused partnership, and just because the practice of sharing a last name is super antiquated in origin doesn’t mean that our use of the practice has to represent that negative baggage. And yes, it’ll be nice to have the same last name as my kids.

I think what I was really wrestling with was that I just didn’t recognize the name. When I said or wrote “Amanda Treese,” I kept hearing a voice in my head saying, “Who?” It was unsettling. I like my last name just fine, and I wasn’t in a hurry to change it. I didn’t know who Amanda Treese was, and I didn’t like thinking that somehow, this name that I didn’t recognize was actually me.

Many months have passed since we applied for that marriage license. We had the best wedding ever followed by an amazing honeymoon, traveled a ton, built a solid palate for and collection of wine, and took seven billion photos of our cats. The fact that my last name was different than his mattered not a single bit. And I realized, having the same last name as his also does not matter a single bit. Now, I know this sounds like a “don’t change my last name” post, but it’s the opposite. I decided that our names were really inconsequential and it changes absolutely nothing about who I am, and if I want to have the same last name as my husband, just do it. The only time I have to strictly go by that name is in legal documents. Plus, I was about to be in a rare time in life with absolutely NO flights booked for a couple months — the perfect time to change my last name, if ever. So I went for it.

I still wish that I had made my maiden name my middle name, but I didn’t put that on the marriage license and I didn’t feel like going through the process of getting a new one. Again, I realized, who cares what my exact name is? I’m in the middle of the extremely arduous process now — I enlisted HitchSwitch to help me through it all — but thankfully I’m at the perfect time in my life to take on an painstaking project like this. And when Tim and I move to a new city one day, no one there will even know my old name. It’s not really who I am. It’s just what was written on a birth certificate …a few… years ago.

For those out there who are undecided or chose to not change their name, I hope you know that this is just my personal experience working toward being comfortable with something that I did genuinely want to do. To change or not change your name is an extremely personal decision that involves no one but you, and nothing is right or wrong except doing what makes you happy.

In conclusion, does anyone know how to get a “Dame” honorific from the Queen? Because I think that would really spice up my new name.

Love,
Dame Amanda M. (Delzell) Treese

Changing your last name

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For my whole life I assumed I would change my last name. The main argument was always to have the same last name as my kids.

A couple weeks before our wedding, our (amazing, flawless) officiant asked how he should address Tim and me at the conclusion of the ceremony. The thought of it gave me the stress sweats. It didn’t sound like me. I’ve been Amanda Delzell for a long time. But I also had it in my mind that I was going to change my name. So I insisted over and over that he simply announce us as “Amanda and Tim.”

I was never one of those daydreamers who doodled her name with the last name of whatever boy she had a crush on. Maybe that would have helped me for this moment. When Tim and I picked up our marriage certificate, I assumed that I couldn’t put my new last name on the certificate because I had flights booked for our honeymoon and I didn’t want a legal change in my name because I wouldn’t be able to get on the flight. But at the office (of…marriage licensing? what is the name?) the person who helped us get our certificate said that I could put my new last name and then legally change it later. So I decided to do it, and possibly never legally change my name.

Well, I still haven’t legally changed my name. But I have tried on my new last name by adding it to my social media and email accounts. But when making appointments, I still use my old name. I introduce myself that way. I don’t really know why. It feels inauthentic still to call myself anything but “Amanda Delzell.” And I think I’ll probably come around by the time ~fAmiLy PLaNniNg~ begins. But I am finally coming to terms with the fact that I’m just not comfortable with it yet, and that’s OK. My cute guy husband is super supportive and doesn’t mind what I do.

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I found out later that a couple friends couldn’t remember Tim’s last name at our wedding, and they said, “We’ll find out at the end of the ceremony!” Of course, they didn’t. But it doesn’t really matter what my (or his) name is. We still got married, we’re still planning to spend our lives together, and I don’t need to have the same last name right away.

I could talk about this endlessly. Please, please share your experience in changing your name!

“Shallow” mood boosters

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Whether you’re struggling with anxiety or just having a bad day, you probably have tricks to make yourself feel better. I recently wrote about one of my favorite tricks for when I’m in a slump, but what about all those other times when you’re sad or lonely or scared or nervous?

There are a lot of things that I thought were too shallow to be real remedies. I should channel it all into being one of those really hot gym chicks or reading a really good and deep novel about happiness and life journeys and stuff or some introspective buddhist poetry or something.

But I am not an eat-pray-lover. Those things just give me more anxiety because I feel like I should be doing that. (Cue Carrie Bradshaw’s ‘Are we should-ing all over ourselves?’ which is top 10 Carrie for sure.)

Some things make me happier, and some things just distract me. Distractions, by the way, are completely legitimate in the realm of anxiety. Distractions, in fact, are something that my therapist recommends, whether it’s counting all the “A”s on the seatback airplane safety card, or spelling out all the vegetables in the grocery store. But there’s also a lot of distractions that take away from real things that you’re avoiding. There’s a difference, and that’s a whole separate post to come. But there are a lot of things that make me happy that seem sort of, well, shallow. And that thought chipped away at the happiness I was getting out of these things. It took me a long time to finally accept these things as totally OK and acceptable and real and impactful.

  • Sun (even if it’s not warm weather). Growing up in Seattle, it was as rainy and overcast as you’d imagine. Some people love it, but some people are hormonally allergic to it. I’m in the latter group. So now, on sunny days — especially when the weather’s been overcast or rainy — I make a massive effort to go for a walk, or sit out by the pool, or just keep my home flooded with natural light outside. It’s a massive boost for me.
  • Planning a trip. This is by far my favorite activity of all time. I think I have as much fun planning as I do actually on the trip. If you’ve ever traveled with me or been exposed to me while planning, you know this. It gives me something to look forward to, to channel my anxiety into (planning is a major source of feeling in-control), and to play to my strengths and therefore make me feel great. The flip side to this one is that in the past I’ve used travel as more of a distraction from dealing with things in my life that needed fixing; I’ve had to work past that (mostly with my trusty therapist, which you should be able to guess by now).
  • Going out and doing something. I usually don’t want to leave the house or be seen or attempt to have fun when I am down. It doesn’t feel genuine. But for the times when I was accountable to someone else to show up to a dinner, or get coffee, or see a movie, or whatever: It almost always brought me out of my funk. It’s definitely a fake-it-til-you-make-it trick, which feels (duh) fake. So now if I’m in an unhappy place, I try to go out to dinner or do something from my spreadsheet of local places I want to visit (yes, I have a spreadsheet of fun things to do. I LOVE SPREADSHEETS LAY OFF ME). PS: Some people — especially those suffering with depression or similar — may not find this to be a helpful or even doable trick, so I want to note that this is simply something that works for me. If it’s not your thing, I do not intent to create any feeling of guilt over not being able to “suck it up and go out.”

  • Having a skincare routine. Early on when I was first seeing her, my therapist introduced the idea of creating rituals in my everyday. She would suggest things like “having a cup of tea” and “putting on a face mask.” I just thought that I had no time for boring stuff like that. But a few months ago (years after she first suggested this), I went to a skincare class at Sephora with my friend Mary, and somehow that experience completely opened my mind to the world of skincare, with which I am now obsessed. It doesn’t take long — only a few minutes every morning and every night — but it makes me feel like I’m really doing something good for myself. Skincare is not something that everyone gets into, but the real takeaway here is having a doable/repeatable daily ritual that prioritizes self-care.

This is a small cross-section of a much bigger list, of course. I’m always learning new things that give me a boost of happy when I most need it — and I’m always looking for more! What’s your favorite way to pull yourself up when you’re down?