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No kidding. Either I really have ticked off the hormone fairy or my inner child has escaped again. Or - and this scares me a little - the Mental Pause Fairy is back to visit.
I knew something was up when I was more sweaty than usual. It's humid here so "sweat" is the new normal. But this was excessive, especially one day when I realized I had not sweated so much since a certain Mother's Day I spent in Phoenix. For the past several days, I have either been too hot or too cold; too chatty or too leave-me-the-hell-alone-y, and either crying at every minimally sad thing I see or laughing until I cannot breathe.
I took out my garbage the other day and noticed that someone had tossed a bunch of household items - seat cushions, ratty Tupperware, and some old-man clothing. I broke into tears right there next to the dumpster because I decided that another of my elderly neighbors had died. That happens too much in this building and it's heartbreaking to watch families discarding their loved ones' things.
So maybe my menopause has only been in hibernation? I thought I was over "The Change" but maybe not? Maybe my sarcoidosis triggered something? Or the medications? That could be.
A couple of weeks ago, I went through a horrible bout of feeling all out of sorts. My fatigue was raging, my brain went haywire, and I was super-clumsy. I had to do a lot of re-posting of old stuff because I could not string together more than 5 sentences - out of my mouth or on paper. Not being able to communicate is tough.
The worst thing about my problem in communicating clearly is that my very best friend in this life happens to be struggling with some kind of dementia. She's almost 80 but was so sharp until recently. Of course, I still call her a couple of times a week - that will never not be a thing - but... Our conversations are like a verbal Picasso or Escher creation.
Ever since I was diagnosed with sarc, I try to be super-aware of my moods. I'm already temperamental and have crazy cat lady tendencies at times. That's not fun for other people. So when I am being really weird, I make every attempt to keep to myself. I don't even like to be around my loved ones when I am feeling "some kind of way". It's not good for relationships of any kind.
The other day, I got so mad at one of my brothers that I felt nearly homicidal. The feeling only lasted for about 5 minutes, but so do some cyclones. And it was all over a fan. Yes, a fan.
I have a ceiling fan in the living room and in the bedroom. My apartment holds heat as if it's the center of the world's climate crisis. I don't spend a lot of time in the living room. I might sit there to watch something that happens to look better on the television than it does on the small screen of my laptop. But I'm not big on watching television so I spend most of my time in the bedroom. My writing desk is in there and, of course, the bed. The ceiling fan in the bedroom is decent - if you position yourself right dead-center underneath. I don't sleep in that position. For that reason, I have a tower fan that stays next to the bed.
My tower fan is so important to me that I made sure to get one that looks nice. Since it's going to be there until I move or die. I've had it since-
hold on while I check the buy-date on Amazon
-about 7 days after I moved into this place. So 4 years come July.
I run that fan all night every night, no matter the season. After so much use, it's starting to slow down. It doesn't cool the air as well or blow as hard as it once did. I've always cleaned it pretty regularly with those magic duster things and canned air but that's no longer doing the job.
Because my brother has a shop vac, I asked if he could take the fan home and blow it out for me. That was on a Monday. By Wednesday, I called to ask if he'd blown out the fan yet. No. He didn't want to simply blow it out. He wanted to take it apart and oil it and make sure that it was really clean.
I know my brother. He so much like my dad and was going to become a NASA project manager of cleaning that fan. I might not see that fan again until the Lord returns.
To speed things up, I told my brother not to worry about taking the fan apart. Just blow it out and bring it back. Please, I begged.
Thursday, I called my SIL and found out that my brother had indeed taken the fan apart. He was in the process of cleaning it but wanted to make sure to oil it well and, while he's at it, replace a couple of the scr-
I think I must have burst a blood vessel at that moment because I saw a flash of bright white light. People say that you cannot do a "slam down" hangup on a cell phone. I disagree. I hit the End button so hard that I hurt my finger.
I guess my SIL relayed all this to my brother because he had the fan back in the next couple of hours.
Am I ashamed of my childish and entitled behavior? Over a fan? Yes, yes, I am. Will that stop me from acting like a crazy woman the next time I get irritated? It's going to depend on these hormones.
And, ladies - I'm talking to any of you who still have a working uterus - here's something you might not know: the process known as "The Change"? That can go on for many years. Many. Years.
I had been told this once but I guess I forgot. It's not a simple one-step process, the whole Menopause thing. (They should, by the way, use my term "Mental Pause".) There are 3 stages and 4 categories to this madness. I'm pretty sure the categories are similar to those of hurricanes. I don't know, but the stages?
- Perimenopause - I hit this at around 52 years old - after I thought I had hit it at 50. Scary to think I could have still gotten knocked up at that point in my life - especially because of the spouse I was with.
- Menopause - This is your last period. And you won't know that - until you don't have another one.
- Postmenopause - This is it. You are done. At least, I thought so. Apparently, my hot flashes haven't met the doctors who claim I should be done with hot flashes. Or flashes of cranky and of crazy. Apparently.
Peace-
