Seasonal Blues

Spring has cropped up all over the place here.  Everything is budding and blooming.  But we're not quite there.  Nights still drop down into the 40's and 30's. Days shoot up towards the 70's.  In the mornings the heat kicks on and I bundle up in front of the fireplace.  The afternoons find me stripping down to summer clothes and turning on all the ceiling fans.  At night J comes home and complains that he is cold.  His half of the bed has an extra blanket on top of the comforter and sheets.  Me?  I fling everything off at night because I'm sweating.  The small fan turned to high on my nightstand does little to help.

I very much have a love/hate relationship with this season of renewal and rebirth.  My favorite time of year- winter- is on its way out.  Soon my dreaded enemy- summer- will be at my front door.  Spring for me is a reminder of all my worst flaws and bad habits.  I think I love winter so much because it's an acceptable excuse to be lazy and moody and a motionless sack.  In summer, everyone expects you to be tan and upbeat and energetic and at your best.  I never am.  So I love spring for all its beauty, but I shrink from what it foreshadows.

Spring does have its moments, like this afternoon.  After a few days of torrential rains, today is sunny and warm with bright blue skies.  Even though my first instinct is to always stay safely tucked away inside the house, I take a stroll in the neighborhood, then I make myself go out onto the deck with my current book.  I remind myself that the body needs sunlight.  The cats come out there with me, and I find a bit of joy watching them turn their faces up towards the sun, their eyes closed.  Their ears twitch at the sound of birds chirping. They are so content, so still.  Do their little brains run nonstop with thoughts, the way ours do?  They are indifferent, loafing, useless creatures, and they are okay with that because it's their purpose in life.  They know we will love them no matter what, and we don't expect anything from them.

I've talked about my garden before.  I love the flowers and I love to plant, but I hate all the maintenance.  Weeding, watering, feeding, trimming, mulching.  I know friends who are happy to work tirelessly out in their yards, who sit and dream about summer coming.  The idea of it just wears me out.  Heat, humidity, sweating.  One afternoon in my flower bed can sideline me for a week with aches and pains and exhaustion.  But I know I have to do it.  I'm sure J doesn't want to spend all his weekends taking care of the yard, we have almost two acres to tend.  But he mows, weeds, edges, fertilizes, aerates, and everything else- not because he loves it, but because he knows that's part of responsible home ownership.  And he does warn me every spring- stop planting more flowers and bulbs because I have trouble taking care of what I'm already growing.  I never listen.

Right now I am simply too sore to think about anything like that.  My arms are black and brown with bruises from all the needles and blood work and labs I've had lately.  My insides are in pain from all the probing and poking around.  Last night I could barely get off the couch because of cramps and a backache, after a very intense internal ultrasound.  I don't want to go into details, but ladies if you don't know what I'm talking about, then you've probably never had one.  I've had three- they are not fun.  I know these doctor-related aches are temporary, in a week the bruises will be fading to yellow, and what will my excuse be?  And I know what the results will be from all this medical detective work.  I am old, I am tired, I am out of shape, I am menopausal.  I don't exercise.  I eat things that come out of a cardboard box instead of directly out of the ground.  I drink too much caffeine, eat too much sugar.  I don't get enough sleep.  Blah blah blah.  The same things that plague half of the women in this country!  Yet they continue on with their lives, and I stumble.

Unlike the ever changing seasons, everything that is wrong with me is completely in my power to fix.  Having a doctor tell me that to my face, will that change things?  Will a medical diagnosis of "overweight middle-age female going through menopause" really empower me?  My doctor won't tell me anything I didn't already know before all of the lab work and probing.  And if I haven't changed by now, I don't know what it will take.

MISS GEE

RIGHT????

Appointments

I have decided that I need some answers.  I can't believe that I'm meant to spend the rest of my life feeling unfocused, lethargic, callous.  I have a great life, and I'm tired of hating it.

I've scheduled an appointment with my primary care physician in a couple of weeks.  She's been my doctor for six years now, and she's seen my ups and downs.  All of the medications I'm on, she's the one who put me on them.  Most of all, she's easy to talk to and she listens.

I took down notes from my last few calendars, where I write pertinent info like weight, periods, sex.  All the things a menopausal woman would need to keep track of.  Looking back over the last three plus years, there were a few startling discoveries that I wasn't even aware of.  Living day to day, you don't notice some things happening- or not happening.  Having 38 months laid out in front of you, patterns emerge.

So it's time to see if my doctor is willing to do some poking around.  Blood, pee, saliva.  Whatever I need to hand over.  My notes, too, to see if she thinks my issues are due to hormones or any of my medications.

I feel as though my body is betraying me.  It's time to figure it out and make some changes.

MISS GEE

On Even Ground

Yes, I'm still here, for anyone who is reading me- which I don't think anyone is.  And I've said before, that's okay, because the blog is for me to sort through my life.  I know depression and chronic pain are unfortunately commonplace these days, for people in all walks of life all over the globe.  My story is only unique to me- when compared to the rest of the world, I blend in like one small leaf on a giant tree.  I honestly wish I blogged every single day, but I don't want to. Some days I don't want to rehash my life, I don't even want to think about things.  I just want to muddle through and know that millions of other people out there are doing the same thing, and it's okay for all of us to be that way.  But today is a blustery, cloudy day with an approaching thunderstorm.  I don't want to run into town and get caught in it.  I don't want to go out and settle down in the garden to work or read.  Even with the lamps on it's too dark in the house to take photos for Etsy or see my pottery well enough to work on fine details.  So, why not check in on the blog.

Truth is, I've been okay lately, so not feeling the need to pour out and dissect what's floating around in my brain.  I would say I've been even keel the last month or two.  Maybe it's the sunshine and the flowers of summer.  Maybe it was the entire month of June, of J having to work nights and being home with me during the day for about five weeks straight.  Maybe it was having two solid weeks in May, of out-of-town company staying with us, much loved family that we enjoy having here.  Maybe it was our very lovely, relaxing, fun visit earlier this month to Lake Tahoe.  Maybe it was all that combined time of me not staying alone in the house day after day, and instead having people always around me to take my mind off my own issues.  I don't know, I will never know.  There is no pattern to my depression- when it strikes, when it eases up.  I've learned to accept both, and right now it seems like for the first time in a really long time, my downs don't outnumber my ups.  And that is cool.

I still deal with the physical pains, but right now I'm trying every home remedy I can find in the herbal books, to keep from having to get on any kind of prescription.  The aches in my joints have been staggering, but a homemade herbal liniment rubbed into my knees, wrists, ankles, lower back has been surprisingly effective.  I even finally started yoga and although I have weeks where the pain is too severe to bend my legs into the poses, I found that the basic class has nearly eradicated my back and hip problems.  Yep, I know, I would say it's hell getting old but I wouldn't trade my 40's for anything.  Despite the pains, I like the person I am now, the life that I have now, a hundred times better than my 30's and definitely a million times better than my 20's.  The confidence and maturity of being almost 50 is priceless.  My 20's I was an immature, stupid, backwards wreck of a girl.

I know the "next stage" of my life is upon me.  My periods have been slowly tapering off.  Last year I only had three.  This year, I had one the first week of January but none since.  I will be 48 this year, it's certainly expected.  I have no feelings about it one way or the other.  I know some women get sentimental about their periods ending, but as for me, the sooner the better!  I don't look at menopause as an emotional ending to my womanhood.  It's strictly physiological, and as long as I can get through the symptoms naturally, I'll be okay.  My mother went through it using prescriptions, and has had (and survived) two different types of cancer related to the drugs.  I'm not doing that.  

For awhile I was suffering with raging hot flashes, and unless I was sitting directly in front of a fan- even in the winter- they were so bad I sometimes felt as though I would pass out.  But leaving my job has cured many of those menopausal ills.  With my stress level falling away, the hot flashes, high blood pressure, and even the migraines have become such small inconveniences in my life that I barely notice them.  As for the sleep issues, I decided as soon as the insomnia hit that I wasn't going to turn to prescriptions for that either.  After a long dependence on Tylenol PM, months ago I finally turned to natural remedies- melatonin, valerian, lavender, tryptophan- to send me off to sweet lullabies every night.  And it all works just as well, without the lingering guilt or concern for overdoing the over the counter chemicals.

Everything has been a process, but it continues.  I try to do more of the right things.  More natural cleaners and less chemicals in the house.  Less coffee and more hot tea.  Stevia instead of white sugar.  More exercise and less glaring at the computer.  Less meat, more organic foods.  More sunshine, less hiding away in the house.  Less frivolous shopping and more trips to drop off bags at Goodwill.  I don't know if any of it makes a damn bit of difference in the way I feel, but it sure can't hurt.  So why not?  Why not try something different, something better?  Even J has swapped his processed instant oatmeal breakfast, for a morning smoothie made from organic spinach, strawberries, and flax seed.  I know he feels much better and his weight loss continues while his health improves.  We will both always backslide with that big greasy gourmet burger, loaded down, with a heap of fries and rings.  And I'm trying my hardest not to beat myself up about those moments, despite my own losing battle with the bulge.

So life is going on right now, at a fairly easy plodding pace, and I'm okay with it.  Mountain peaks always have deep valleys, and sometimes it's better to stay on the gentle, flat pathway for awhile, to avoid those low shadowy places.  We have some big, giant, enormous changes that are potentially coming our way, and for the moment I'm content to ignore them, to stay even-tempered, getting neither excited nor frantic because it may or may not happen.  Despite the mundane suburban middle-aged life that I lead, there are still unexpected upheavals that happen.  And even with "good" changes, the nerves get raw and the anxiety levels grow.  

What is that little phrase from World War II that I see everywhere these days?  Keep calm and carry on?  

Taking a deep breath today, and I'll be back very soon.

MISS GEE