Here I am, coming back after the umpteenth hiatus to say hi, Lovelies, once again… and to discuss a couple of light topics. I will not make excuses for my absence – you’ve heard them all before.
Ahem. How do I do this blog thing again? Let’s be orderly, shall we? Headings are orderly. I said I was gonna discuss some light topics.
Inflation
Ugh, seriously. Noticing how very much more everything costs than it used to is a double kick-in-the-pants. Not only does it make me anxious about how expensive it all is, but it makes me feel like some old codger who had a black-and-white TV and polyester pants as a small child (which I did). “Why, I remember when 4 litres of milk cost $2.99 and our phone was attached to the wall!” (The phone book did make a great booster seat, though.)
Fascism
Ugh, seriously. You know what I’m talking about. It’s a profoundly effed-up timeline. The disbelief that we’re repeating the stupidest parts of our history. Tra la la. I’m sure this will come up again in many posts (which I’m determined to actually write), but I’ll try not to blog-punch you in the face with it. The daily news already does that.
Gratitude
I am really, really grateful to be where I am, with the people I have in my life, in the city and country I live in. I’m even grateful to live in this timeline, even though it’s profoundly effed-up. There are also a lot of amazing things about it. Mostly I am hyper-aware of my safety and privilege, and of my overlapping communities that make life surmountable.
Underfunding
You know when you’re trying to help a young student who’s extremely upset, and it’s clearly the result of trauma, and the school is not equipped for this, and you’re like, we can only really help this kid if their whole family gets help, and then you remember that we’re more than seven years into a provincial government that ONLY CUTS funding to important things that help people who really need help?
Yeah. It sucks.
Perimenopause
“Lots of feelings” does actually file under this heading. Because although I know I can’t truly blame inflation or fascism or underfunding on perimenopause, many other things fit. We talk about this a lot at school, because we are mostly women (and the men we work with are used to hearing about our stuff), and many of us are in or approaching perimenopause. And we share information, because it’s the best way to gather knowledge on a topic that the medical community has been ignoring since always. (Because female suffering is normal.)
Every time I hear about a new random symptom that improved for someone when they got treatment, I have a light-bulb moment. Yes, we all know about the hot flushes and night sweats, because they seem harmless (to people who don’t have them) and they’re cute fodder for jokes about women of a certain age. Ditto with decreased libido.
And I guess I could have predicted erratic cycles (three months followed by three weeks, followed by a three-week period? Yay!). And I knew about increased osteoporosis risk.
But there’s no course to prepare us for our own personal cocktail of stuff gone haywire, including:
- sleep
- body pain
- emotions
- energy levels
- weight
- and of course brain function.
Blah. How is anyone supposed to cope with the aforementioned inflation, fascism, and underfunding during all this? And whatever other unpredictable baloney symptoms? The other week, I had a day where my gums were very swollen and painful for NO GOOD REASON. Though I hadn’t mentioned it, the very next week one of my coworkers mentioned that it’s a symptom of perimenopause.
So just whatever. Come on, Menstruators, let’s shake things up with this fun game! Let’s take all your bodily systems and throw them in a jar and waggle it around as hard as we can! It’ll be a big silly jumble and some things will even fall out! Isn’t that a rib-tickler? Ha ha!
I should tell you, I don’t have the worst symptoms at this point. And of course, maybe some of this is inevitable as we age. But I’m not that old (47 – ancient by some standards but I’m planning to live a lot longer). And I am very nice to my body most of the time. I move and strengthen and stretch her a lot, and I give her super-nutritious food. Should my lower back and toe joints feel like they’re 90? (On-and-off. But still.)
Anyhoo. Fluctuating hormones. What’s especially cool is being on the far end of my fertile years at the same time as my 13-year-old daughter is coming into the other end. Can’t you just imagine it?
A few final words
I have a new blog host! (Thank you for everything, Heather!) That means that I’ve adjusted a few things. If you were once a subscriber to this blog via email, I do not have you on record because my last email plugin stopped working properly. I would be thrilled if you would re-subscribe in the sidebar!
And now it’s time to go. I’m watching the Blue Jays in Game 7 of the World Series with Skye, who has taught me everything I know about baseball (that didn’t come from movies). Fingers crossed!
Thanks for reading, lovelies. I’ve missed you.
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Welcome back!
Thanks, Skye! <3