6:36 pm
…but raging on the inside! Haha. Not really. Though, I thought this year was going to be it: the year of easy days, no mood swings, no overthinking, no dreading my work or sweating the process of it all. I can’t believe we’re 19 days into the new year! I usually feel pretty good, and motivated; past few days, not so much. Such is life.
Our dog is still going strong, though, her back legs and hind area are definitely weaker than they were a few months ago. For now, she’s managing, maybe even thriving a bit more (we are tapering her off the high dose of gabapentin she was on, and I think it’s helping her to feel stronger and more alert, more like her old self). She peed in her sleep last night, though, and that sucks; we’re used to her not being able to control where or when she poops (she just can’t move that well or that fast anymore), but not this. We’ll see; I hope it was a one-time thing…
Past few days, I’ve been angry, and feeling sensory deprived. I am pretty sure my anger is simply related to the progesterone supplement I take–I feel angry after I take it a few days in a row (and, well, um, the fact that I have this night heat, and I am in this state of flux/confusion/not knowing who I am or who I am going to be, and I just don’t appreciate it). I think that is the number one reason why perimenopause is not talked about: society won’t let women age, but also, for me, I don’t WANT to let people (even other women) know that I am aging, that I can’t take the heat (literally), that I am anything BUT who I used to be, which is young, sexual, productive, I guess. I don’t want to let it stop me from being me, to change me that much. And, the further along I go, the more I see just how little attention it gets (even my supposed menopause-specialty gynecologist was kind of like, gurl, it happens, as she ushered me out–two years later, and three meds later, I am still burning up every night). I don’t know what I want or expect from others, but I do know that this night heat is no joke.
I have to admit, the burning-up-at-night thing is getting better. And, I’m rarely brought to my knees anymore over it–haha. I just accept, and exhale, and move on, shivering and feeling oh, so pained! It’s getting better, though; I mean, it’s not as intense as it was two years ago, or a year ago, so that is something to be extremely grateful for. It still lasts from 8 pm to 3 am, or longer–I burn all night, I don’t sweat, and it is not a “flash”–but it’s not that bad. Maybe I’ve just gotten used to it; I have definitely learned to curtail my reaction to it, to embrace it as somehow normal–that goes a long way toward making it seem better. It’s all relative, I guess.
Anyway, I could go on and on about that, but it really is just a passing phase. I get the sense that my symptoms are WAY better than some women’s; then again, I don’t know if I had or have brain fog, or had or have abnormal mood swings–I lived through at least a decade of mind-bending wine hangovers, so, my “normal” was brain dead; my “normal” was like, psychotic-break-level mood swings. When I stopped drinking, I was like, omg, maybe I’m not bipolar. And, when I started taking the pill for my perimenopausal symptoms at the end of 2016, I was like, omg, maybe I didn’t have to suffer through 30 years of crazy PMS mood swings (I got my first period when I was 12; I never took the pill until I was 42). How I feel now is always going to be 1000 times better than how I felt the past decade of alcoholic drinking!
Anyway, that’s that. Anger from the meds or just general impatience (I am still working on that, believe it or not–haha). I feel agitated toward my “calling,” which is writing. I like having written, let’s put it that way! The blank page does not bother me as much as it does others, and for me, editing small quantities of writing is not bad. It’s planning, structuring, implementing long documents that gets horrendous–there are writers of books, I guess, and then there is everyone else. Writing is also extremely analytical, and, you’re doing it in a state of sensory deprivation most of the time (I love nature, the sights, sounds, smells of the world around me; writing is not that!).
And, so, it’s for these mundane reasons that I have been thinking of drinking: I want to feel something; I am bored; my mind hunts for new terrain. And, that’s when drinking-thinking comes in, to fill that desperate void: Well, why are you doing this to yourself? No one cares if you drink; everyone ELSE gets to have fun, to relax, to refresh their minds with wine (or drugs)! But, for me, I know it would not be just one glass–still, after all these years, I know this–and, I think having a hangover and being unproductive the next day would just boggle my mind and make me feel worse than I can even imagine.
So, onward we go, plugging toward the goal, the light, the future perfect (that’s a tense!). But, nothing is ever going to be perfect, or in place, or without struggle; so…finding the joy along the way, and the ability to let go of what does not serve you, which is anger and perfectionism and the desire or need to control the bad feelings; I guess that’s what the real lesson is, for me anyway, this year (this life). I guess.
Drunky Drunk Girl 