Me and my brain…

All limbs present, most of my organs hanging in there, an immune system well-toned by dust and pet dander. I eat spinach. I floss daily. Plus, don’t forget, I’m an Iron Gardener, and I do yoga. Bikram yoga, the tough one.

Okay, fine, full disclosure:

While my body might be solid, my mind… well it’s doing the best it can under the circumstances. Quadruple-Scorpio, introvert, right-brained, intuitive, aesthetic, INFJ, however you want to categorize my inner self, it skews well off the centre line. I might look fairly contained, but it’s a cover. I over-think, over-feel, over-react, over-suffer.

As an aside to this aside, this is apparently a common thing among writers. Jenny Crusie refers to it as the “broken filter” syndrome. Life comes at us hard and fast, and we feel it all. Deeply. If we can stand it, it’s what makes us good writers, painters, dancers, actors, musicians, etc.

Aaaaaanyway…

So yes, I have moments of wild despair, weighed down by the futility of existential solitude. But since I haven’t cut off an ear, or drunk hemlock or gone swimming with rocks in my pockets, I consider myself a functional sensitive-artist type.

So, as I was saying: healthy – check.

First of all, I’d like to say up-front that I’m married and determined to stay that way. And not just in a “you’ve made your bed, you’ll lie in it” kind of way.

But I don’t take either condition for granted. In fact, I will admit to being a little… high-maintenance… at times.

My husband calls it hypochondria. He prefers to either suffer in silence – ha! – or tell me, but with that martyred air that implies he never gets any sympathy around here.

I say, if you’ve got a headache, tell somebody, so that when you drop dead of an aneurysm, they’ve got a clue.