Day 56 Great News – I’m Not Pregnant
But it certainly explains the blueberry-sized pimple percolating unicorn-like on my forehead. It’s an evil joke that puts chin hairs and zits on the same face, but I know of many women around my age that are dealing with this. Hot flashes interspersed with menstrual cramps. Mood swings and memory lapses, (which is actually a good combination when you think about it.) Insomnia, cravings, and get-the-hell-out-of-my-way rage. PMS on crack, that’s perimenopause, except it’s less predictable and it seems to last longer.
Yay, right?
I’ve been in it for the last three or four years and, between herbal supplements and bioidentical hormone replacement cream, I’m dealing. Sometimes better than others, but I haven’t killed anyone, so that’s something.
I always told my girls that the emotional ups and downs that sometimes – but not necessarily – accompany the menstrual cycle are not a “bad” thing, but rather a tool we can use to identify something that perhaps we’re unhappy about, but that three weeks out of four, we’re pretending is just fine. My daughters have all inherited the “nice” gene, I’m afraid, so I always felt this was information they needed.
We try so hard, us nice girls, to deal, to make things good, fine, okay, great, happy, smooth, peaceful, that we sometimes roll right over those aspects of our life that aren’t quite as they should be. We don’t ask for help when we need it; we don’t say when we’re disappointed; we agree to things when we really want to argue. PMS rips off the veil, forcing us to see what’s real, instead of what’s easiest.
So, yeah, now that I seem to be in a permanent veil-lifted stage, the lessons I taught my girls are coming home to roost. I might look a little more selfish, crabby, argumentative, and a little less compliant and obliging. What I am definitely more of these days is honest. And I think that’s the real task of mid-life.
It comes circling back to that central question: what do I really want? For myself, not anyone else, just me?
Because as my primarily-mother years wane, I’m back to me, myself, a woman I need to get to know all over again.
Day 50 What Do You REALLY Want?
There’s an old folk tale about a woman who is cursed to be a hideous crone by day, but beautiful by night. There’s all sorts of stuff in this story: knights, kings, peasants, a peasant who gets raped by a knight, but I can’t remember how all that goes and you don’t really care, do you?
Anyhoo. Somehow or other, rapist-knight is sentenced by the king to wander the country asking the question: “What do women want?” Which has a lot of merit, as a sentence, don’t you think? He gets all sorts of answers: beauty, riches, men, men who put the outhouse lids down, rich men who put the outhouse lids down. But when he meets the hideous crone, she tells him the true answer:
“Sovereignty.”
It’s a big word. I had to look it up. Today, we’d say something like “autonomy” which is basically the ability to run your own life. Independence. Decision-making ability.
Leap forward in the story. Rapist-knight marries hideous crone (I forget how this particular merger was arranged, because I can’t see either of them working up much enthusiasm) and is given the ability to partly change her curse. It can stay as is, leaving her fugly by day but hot at night – which would work for him – or she can be fugly at night, but hot by day. This would probably further her career as a public servant, plus he’d get some arm-candy at knight events, but at home, he’d still be handing her a bag for her head. Hm. Which is better for him? Which is better for her?
But hurray! Rapist-knight has learned his lesson. He humbly says he can’t make such a decision. It’s up to his wife. It’s her life, after all. And poof! Instantly, the spell is broken! Hideous crone becomes beautiful woman, day and night, permanently. (I assume rapist-knight has by now been totally reformed into a fine, upstanding family man as well.) Butterflies. Rainbows. Happily ever after.
Although I’ve butchered this story pretty thoroughly, what I like about it is that, at its core, it’s about each of us being the master of our own destiny, the star of our own show, the main character in the story of our life.
A wise therapist told me once, long ago, that “it’s more important to know what you want, than it is to get what you want.” And underneath everything, what we want most of all is to have the power to choose, for ourselves, what is best for us.
As I continue my midlife quest to redefine myself, I come back to the questions I posed here, with permission from Seth Eisenberg of the PAIRS Foundation.
- What do I want that I am not getting?
- What am I getting that I don’t want?
- What am I giving that I don’t want to give?
- What would I like to give to you if only things were better between us?
- What am I getting that I do want?
I think the answer, for all of us, is autonomy, just like the loathly lady said. We want the power to live the lives we’ve chosen, with the people we love, doing the things that we believe in and find meaningful. Yet we often slip into days and weeks and years of obligation, going through the motions because someone else wants us to, or it’s expected of us, instead of following our own passions.
I think that, in intimate relationships, the biggest challenge is to remain a whole person, in your own right, while still being half of a couple.
So, what are you waiting for? What do you want?
Day 45 Miss Communication
Once upon a time, I did a brief stint as a cosmetics commando. You know the company, rhymes with Tammy Faye. I was all a-quiver, anticipating my meteoric rise to make-up fame! Not only would I get pots of money and good skin, I’d learn to speak! In public!
Despite of hours of practice, smiling and gesturing at the mirror, I was a mass of trembling nerves before my first party. My hostess directed me to the coffee table where I set out my things, centred myself, took a deep breath … and choked. Literally. This was no little coughing fit. My wide-eyed hostess whacked me on the back, pushed glasses of water at me and finally led me to the washroom where I spent the first ten minutes of my perfect speech hacking up a lung.
When I eventually emerged, she was waiting for me, white-faced, a straw in one hand and a steak knife in the other, preparing I guess for some sort of desperate meatball surgery. Her friends had fled the scene.
My voice gone, my good skin mottled blue and red, my expensive mascara dripping off my chin, I ended my first party and my cosmetics-sales career by throwing some samples at her and croaking, “Try these, (gasp) they’re great.”
But spit-valve malfunctions aside, one of my biggest life challenges is to use words properly, directly, and clearly.
“Miss Communication!” I declared to my husband one night. “That’s my goal!”
“Congratulations,” he said, not looking up from the sports highlights. “You miscommunicate with the best of them.”
(To be fair, ever since our conversation about a neurotic dream of mine, he hasn’t been terribly motivated to pay attention. “You had an erotic dream?” he answered, perking up his ears. “Was I in it?”
“You sure were!” I responded, bursting into tears.)
Language is important. For instance, some of Bikram’s flowing dialogue is just weird. “Breathing is normal,” the instructor intones. Well, unless you’re a fish, duh. It took me weeks to figure out that what they intend is not a declarative, but a directive: they’re telling us to breathe normally.
There was an older gentleman in Tuesday’s class who was definitely not breathing normally. In fact, he was gasping rather alarmingly. Then I remembered that I’ve seen him before and he keeps returning, alive and well, so I guess that’s his baseline. Maybe for him, gasping is normal.
Bikram’s instructions have other strange content, such as: the mysterious Japanese Ham Sandwich. That’s what I’m supposed to look like when I bend forward and (try to) rest my face against my shins.
And why do we have to put our “exactly foreheads” to our knees? How about “put your forehead exactly on your knees.”
I’m aware that such loosely played language is my particular nails-on-chalkboard. I actually enjoyed grammar in high-school, what can I say? I don’t judge those of you who can’t spell or deconstruct sentences. I may laugh at you in private, but know that I do it with love.
Experts say there are many interpretations for every statement: what I meant to say, what I actually said, what you heard, what you understood … and on and on. Do we ever truly say what we mean? Do we even know what we mean? No wonder communication is the basis for relationships – and conflict. Language is a miracle.
So much lies hidden under the surface of smiles, clothing and mannerisms, waiting for the words that will reveal the person within. Those words may be different for each of us, but emotions are universal. We all feel frightened, joyful, inadequate, loved, lonely, enraged; we all struggle towards expression. Having the courage to be honest builds strength in relationships. Sharing our feelings through words is what makes us human.
So I keep trying. Speak. Explain. Apologize. Try again. Words strung together into sentences, sentences woven into relationships, a blanket to warm the wordless core of each of us.
“I don’t know why it’s so important to me,” I said to my husband later that same day. “I guess it’s just part of my artistic nature.”
His head came up at that, his eyes widened, then softened in compassion.
“Honey,” he said, reaching for my hand. “You’re not autistic.”