Not fair not fair not fair.

Over the past two weeks, I almost totally had a cessation of menopausal symptoms. By that I mean the Terribly Emotional part, the time of the Big Sweats and Hot Flashing was almost completely gone. Of course I hadn't had a period since last spring some time... and then a week ago I was revisited by Aunt Flo. I thought maybe that would be a good thing; if I am making enough estrogen (or progesterone, or WHATEVER hormone makes that happen) to do that, then maybe I won't get more sweats, hot flashes or emotional swings.

HA HA HA.

Yeah so... the past two days I have been in a constant state of soggy. Wet hair, wet clothes. It feels like I have been standing out in the misty rain (not a downpour, at least) and getting...soggy. I have to take a couple showers a day or I feel sticky and tacky and gross. I'm thirsty all the time because I'm sweating all the time. All night. All day. I have to keep a glass of water on my night table, waking up 2 or 3 times to slake the horrible dryness that I feel.

I feel angry, frustrated, disappointed, impatient, sad, disgusted... And I keep wondering... when will it all be finished? How long will these really intense symptoms last? I've never seen any other woman do what I am doing. Just... nasty wet. I have it dripping off my eyebrows, my jaw, the entire back of my head gets so wet it drips off the end of my hair. And that's when I'm SITTING STILL. If I get busy doing something...yikes. This can't be normal. Can it??

We did some Christmas decorating last night. I've always loved doing that. This year, last year, not nearly as much. Not sure why, it just feels kind of pointless without kids here to see it. :(

Later.

One Day Past Crazy.

Hard to deny a crazy day.

So it's been really rough this year thinking and planning for the holidays. I think I mentioned that in my last post. Maybe even the one before. Why is it that when a person is already having a hard day, everything that might go wrong...does? Days when you think all the bases are covered, that there's no way what you have planned can go awry?

And then it does.

This menopause thing seems to touch on nearly every area of my life. I remember feeling so annoyed with my mom sometimes back when I still lived at home when she'd explode with impatience, her face dripping with perspiration and flushed with hectic color. She got upset seemingly at nothing at all sometimes. She didn't sleep well. I'm beginning to resemble that woman, and it sucks. Feel a little guilty now for my disgust.

I deal with chronic pain from a birth defect. I have had to live with it since just before I turned 40. It, too, affects everything. Whether I can go shopping, do laundry, vacuum... Whether I'll spend a day doing housework, yard work or simply sitting and doing something like knitting or watching a movie. A bad hip, one that has a mind of its own, tells its own story.

So, with those two very obvious strikes against me, I have to weave in and out of life's obstacles with delicacy and caution if I want to not hurt or not have to take three showers in one day (those are the sweat-my-guts-out menopausal days). When something small--like missing a mail delivery I was expecting and actually really needed in a hurry--happens, it's almost like the end of the world. Tears have been right at the surface for days. My period hasn't come since last spring...until day before yesterday. And then...wow. Felt like the world was ending yesterday.

Today I got four calls and texts from current and former family members, letting me know that a beloved uncle (from my first marriage) had passed on today. How do I separate the emotions from the situation? I don't feel really free to just call anyone from the family I used to be a part of. There are a lot of situational issues there...mostly with the woman who is now married to my ex. I'm sure--and she's probably totally normal in this response--that she does NOT like me to insinuate myself in any area of her new family. I have held nothing against her, was very happy for her and my ex. But she stepped into something that wasn't her place to step into and tore the fragile bridge I'd hoped to keep open (for the sake of my kids ONLY) to pieces and then set fire to them. I did write a tiny note of condolence to a cousin (the son of the uncle who died), being very careful in my wording so as not to offend anybody. It's really sad that it has come to this.

Life is really hard sometimes. I think I'm in a season of rotten apples in my orchard.

Christmas is Coming...and all that jazz.

O Christmas Tree...

It's not yet December. Hasn't been a week since Thanksgiving yet. It feels like a month. I used to never be able to figure out why people often get depressed during the holidays. I have a better idea now. I used to be one of those people who thought that depression and other mental problems were just character flaws or weaknesses. That if they'd just (excuse the terminology) grow a set, they would be fine. In the past 5-6 years, I've begun to realize that there are just times when it's not possible to put emotions and thoughts aside. When the fears, the memories (whether sweet and poignant or unhappy), rise up and make drowning in them a distinct possibility. Knowing that there are people out there who are angry and hateful, who think they know certain things (but they don't), who seek to tear down and hurt others--and for what? To expand their own sense of self-worth? I hate to break the bad news, but that methodology just doesn't work. You may feel a temporary sense of self-righteousness, but it fades and leaves you feeling disgusted with yourself for being so ugly and unkind. And if you're a bright person who actually has a working brain between your ears, you also know that there are always two sides to every story--and that if all you hear is ONE side, it's a lopsided viewpoint.

I've spent time thinking about old times with my kids and yes, even remembering happy memories with my ex during the holidays. The laughter, the decorations... the sweetness of anticipation for that day when all the surprises that have been hidden away for months come out into the open and are finally visible. Music and lights, family time and gifts...and in the midst of it all, the greatest gift of all: Jesus, who came, who saw, who saved. He, who knew everything we would ever do, every decision we would make, every right and wrong that would be a part of our internal selves, He came. He loved us, despite those things we do that aren't always "right." He saved us. Even so.

I have always loved Christmas. Pretty much everything about it except perhaps for the craziness of shopping and fighting the crowds. But the music! Nat "King" Cole, Jim Reeves, A Colours Christmas, Amy Grant and Vince Gill...oh, so many favorite Christmas albums! The beautiful lights and decorations that are put up with such anticipation... Now it feels rather hollow. We don't really exchange gifts per se, my husband and I. Maybe a book or a pair of slippers. Or a needed tool. But we decorate and I play Christmas music and the lights glow and the fireplace log burns. But the sense of joyous anticipation that always came with the kids and their Christmas treasures under the tree is not there anymore. I have never been able to spend Christmas with my grandchildren, not even once. It isn't possible, not without a pile of cash from which to draw--and we don't have that. So the hollow, echoing house, with the long silences and very separate, personal memories of Christmas Past are what we live with now. And there is some good in that too; we have our very own, new traditions. Making glass-beaded ornaments, for one. Finding new/old movies we both enjoy.

It's just so sad to me that I am so far away from my own precious babies--and their babies--at this blessed time of year. My sense of humor is sadly absent right now.

I need to find something to do that requires my brain for longer stretches at a time so that I don't spend so much time thinking and feeling down. I always LOVED the holidays. I want that feeling BACK! And I don't want to deal with the meanness of other people, who seem to get a charge out of saying things that are targeted to cause pain. Why do people do that, anyway? And why doesn't anyone seem to realize it's happening, except for me?

Ah well. Enough of that. Whining has never been my favorite thing to do. I just wish we could all love one another, move on with life without having to hurt someone else in doing it and find our joy in the best place of all: Jesus' heart.

Ta-ta for now.

Holidays...Holy Days

It's been a while since I posted. In the time since, I've been out to Oregon for a few weeks and have continued to deal with the menopausal symptoms that seemed about to make me lose my mind. It's a little better now. Educating one's self can really be a good thing. Helpful. I discovered that lack of sleep or broken sleep can exacerbate the symptoms of menopause (really? I'd never have guessed.). And yet, menopause in and of itself causes that broken sleep (night sweats, feeling like you've swallowed the sun and it's now lodged between your ears and breastbone). I figured that if broken sleep makes it worse, and menopause is causing broken sleep...well, isn't that the epitome of a vicious cycle? Yup. 'Tis. So I decided to put on my thinking cap and figure out a way to keep the night sweats and hot flashes to a minimum during the night time.

I tried several things.

1. Leave the bedroom window open a few inches--even if it's hovering somewhere between icy and freeze-dry outside. (Frostbite isn't pretty. Especially in some areas.)
2. Sleep naked, or nearly so. (See above.)
3. Find an organic-fabric and -filled pillow that doesn't transfer heat. (No such animal exists. If it does, it's like finding bigfoot. I think it's a myth.)
4. Take sleeping medication. (Still waking up all night...just waking up drunk. Sort of better but not really.)
5. Drink alcohol. (I've been told it lowers body heat. Not sure about that but it did nothing to improve sleep. Added problem of hugging the porcelain god next morning. Not fun.)
6. Cry. (It's supposed to increase endorphins. Whoever said that... lied. Unless endorphins are little tiny animals that make your eyes red and swollen and give you the hiccups.)

Then, employing the part of my brain that has been hiding in a dark, frightened little huddle in the back corner of my skull, I thought, "Why not tackle this from a more direct angle? Find a way to keep your head cool at night."

I had a pillow that was really different. I'd bought it years ago but never used it for whatever reason. It was a regular pillow in that it looked normal. But it was actually an alternative down stuffed, zippered cover with a firm, smaller memory foam pillow inside it. I took the small pillow out and sliced it down one long edge. Then I stuck a king-sized pillow case down inside the pocket I'd made by cutting it open, then brought the remainder of the pillow case out and tucked it around the outside of it. (Imagine creating a little lined pocket inside the little memory foam pillow.) I took out one 8x8" frozen gel pack (the kind you use to keep your food cold in a cooler) that was a half inch thick, as well as two 3" x 4" gel packs and stuffed them inside the pocket in the little pillow. I put that stuffed little pillow into the larger, standard sized zippered outer pillow and zipped 'er closed. Pillow case on. Laid down on it. A wee bit firm but...blissfully...amazingly cool. Not cold. Not at all. There's too much foam and alternate down between my head and the ice for that. 

Good news. GREAT news. That first night, not one hot flash. Woke up once to go to the bathroom but that was it. And in the past 3 weeks I've been using it, I have totally stopped waking up with hot flashes and sweats! And now that I'm getting better sleep, I'm having almost zero hot flashes during the day. What a blissful relief! And with the remission of hot flashes has come a somewhat lesser problem with emotional swings. 

But now, it's the holidays. And I'm far, far away from my kids, grandkids, sisters and brother, and mom and dad. I don't remember the last Christmas I spent with them. Probably 2006. Yeah. That's it. Sad. I have never spent Christmas with the grand babies. Isn't that pathetic? I think it is.

Holidays. Holy Days. I think those two are sort of one and the same. It's tough to separate them in my mind. 

I guess I'm a little like Scarlett O'Hara. I'll think about it all...tomorrow.

Menopause is Awesome.

Not really. But it sounds good, doesn't it? I mean, we are born women. We go through the normal events of childhood, adolescence (and wow, isn't it exciting when we get our first menses?), become young women, mothers... Through all these growth times, we persevere with cramps, bleeding, pain, weakness, childbirth...emotional issues, some of which include depression. For some of us, those times are relatively easy. For others, it's a monthly struggle and not something to look forward to.

And then, oh glorious wonders, we get the joy of menopause! Hallelujah, can you say amen? Night sweats that are so amazing that they awaken us from sleep... hot flashes that show up and make it feel like the sun has taken up residence somewhere between your nose and navel, with no possibility of getting out of the heat because it's coming from INSIDE...and then the emotional swings. Wow. I've had moments in my life of feeling sad...hasn't everyone? Times when I didn't know what to do with myself, anxious moments of feeling out of place... But this?! This is waaaaaay beyond all that.

I now have days when I don't want to get out of bed. And then, contrarily, I can't stay IN bed another second. And these feelings will erupt within minutes of one another. I have no energy; I have too much energy. And no...no no no no...it's NOT bi-polar disorder. I actually asked the doc about that kind of thing. He smiled (that knowing, smug little smile that made me want to slug him and ask if he had ever experienced these joys) crossed his legs and laced his fingers together, resting his hands on his upraised knee. He had already laid aside his iPad (which he uses for notes and to look stuff up while we have our visit) and looked at me.

"Angela, I think you're entering menopause."

Seriously? Like I didn't KNOW that? Gee, doc, what gave me away? I wondered. Could it be the red face and neck? The sweat popping out and splatting onto the wall--ten feet away--even though it's like minus ten degrees in this air-conditioned office? Or maybe it's the change in attitude. The fact that I've gone from smiles and forbearance to scrunched up and ready to cry at the drop of a hat? Maybe the fact that I missed my period for like 5 months and then it started up again, this time with a vengeance? Fifteen days of using feminine products, a half a bottle of aspirin (or Goody's powders if they're available), the desire for a glass of wine every night (which I don't indulge because it gives me a smashing headache within 20 minutes of guzzling----ahem, I mean sipping it)? How about the fact that there are times when I can barely sit still because my muscles and nerves are firing to get me onto my feet but my mind and heart just want to be quiet and still? These paradoxical feelings are very new and frustrating.

So I ask the doc, "What can I do? Is there something I can take or eat?"

"Soy seems to help some women," he says with a very benign tone. "Or blue/black cohosh."

I've tried the cohosh. Didn't do much. "Soy. I have heard it's linked with some pretty bad stuff. What about valium? I've heard that helps."

He smiles. Kind of chuckles. "You're not at the valium stage yet."

My gosh. How much worse will it get, then, before I AM at that stage?

"So, soy. In pills or do I choke down that Silk stuff? That soy milk...?"

"You can do either."

Yech. Blah. Nasssssssty. I'm sure it is. Even though I've never actually tasted it. I nod, knowingly. "I'll try that," I say, fully planning on trying it.

I pick some up on my way home from the doc's office. I get home, pop the little plastic thingy out of the spout and pour a 12 ounce glass. I smell it. Sip it. "Very Vanilla, huh?" I mutter, tipping the glass and opening my throat to roughly the diameter of a five year old fir tree. Glug, glug. It's sweet and reminds me of the smell of baby formula. Yech. I decide to check the caloric and sugar values. Oh, good grief. I've just lost almost 30 pounds by getting away from sugar. This stuff has more calories ounce for ounce than my favorite beverage, Pepsi. I would rather drink Pepsi, I think as I put the carton back into the fridge.

Praying that this thing helps, I go through my day, hoping for a better night of rest because for weeks I've waking up about 5 times a night. No joke. I'm drenched one time, then wake up the next freezing cold because I threw off my blankets when I was sweating. So I'm wet AND cold. I get up, dry off, get under the covers (sometimes after having to wake my husband to change the sheets if it's bad enough, other times I just throw a bath towel onto the damp sheets and change the pillowcase) ...and an hour later I'm awake again, hotter than a two dollar pistol, sweating profusely. And so on. I kid you not. Now, these moments don't occur every night, but frequently enough to be a tough thing to bear up under. No wonder I feel depressed, or even short tempered some days! I'm suffering from sleep deprivation!

My husband is really banal about it all. He mostly just nods and smiles when I'm having one of those days. God love him. I could just strangle him for being so unaffected. I know just where I'll bury the body after I reach the point of being unable to bear his kind regard during this time of great distress. The peach trees need fertilizing.

Maybe tonight will be less traumatic.

Family Visit Today

Weird. But cool, nonetheless. My daughter Evie, along with her husband and two little girls are coming today. For most normal families, that wouldn't be so unusual, but it is a rare occurrence in my life. I live 2200 miles away from them. They live in Oregon, I live in Arkansas. Over the river and through the woods indeed. Many rivers and many woods, in fact. I am beside myself with joy and anxiousness. Joy--well, that's for obvious reasons. Anxiousness...well, that's on several levels. One, it's the first time that my son-in-law has ever been to MY house. And of course, I'm worried that they'll be okay on their flight...that the babies are comfortable and not crying, that they won't tire themselves out, and of course, that that incredibly huge jet will stay properly in the air where it belongs and not fall out of the sky. Yes, I am aware that more crashes occur in cars than in jets but still. It's a long way up at 30,000+ feet.

I've been working hard on retraining my brain. I think it's had some effect. I cannot be certain, but I've sort of felt better about things. It's like my brain has decided that it likes having all its neurons connected and firing once again. I went to check out Lumosity.com and as advertised, it's got some kind of cool games (yes, I know I mentioned this before, but bear with me) and ideas but I'm not going to pay for something that I can do for free on other sites.

A few days ago I found one that seems really great. But it's very difficult, by comparison to the others (like the AARP ones...*smile*). I also found an app for my iPhone that is pretty great. It's almost the exact same games as the ones on Lumosity and it's FREE. Yes, at least most of the levels are free. It's called Kerobics Gym. Try it. You might like it. Then again, you might not. ha.

So anyway, I've been training my brain to grow new connections in its neural net. Hopefully, I'll be back to my normal self soon. (I know some people that might be frightened to hear those words. hahaha.) I am hoping that the episodes of repeating myself due to lack of short term memory will go away. I'm getting really tired (and embarrassed) of hearing the words, "Yeah, Mom...you mentioned that. About a week ago. And twice before that." That's a slight exaggeration, but sheesh! Kids. Gotta love 'em. Of course, I'm the one who raised them to be smartie-pantses. My own bad. hehehe.

Well, I'm going to go grab a cuppa coffee and then get busy. I have to finish vacuuming and dusting. And making sure that there are absolutely no hazards for my one-year-old granddaughter to hurt herself with while she's here. I'm off to crawl around the house on hands and knees, at baby eye-level, looking for stuff. I believe I've heard this particular trick called CHILD PROOFING. *grin* It's gonna be GREAT.

Until later, I remain,
Grammy J.

Is it Possible?

So many things that float around in my head. Seriously. Like hot air balloons, they just float around in there, bumping off the neurons and spinning out into inner space. Ideas that aren't fully formed, things I try to memorize, conversations I don't seem to remember the way I once did... But old, long-term memories seem to be intact.

Talked to Steph (cousin) a few days ago. I was telling her how my mind seems to be on vacation of late. She laughed and said to her it sounded like typical menopause. Well, I am 47, so I suppose that's a good possibility. Just...I don't feel 47. At least not most days. It's like my 25-year-old person-self is hanging around in my 47-year-old body. And that younger version of me feels cheated. Maybe even...yes. Violated. Hmmm. Like there's some kind of revolt going on in there and the old part of me has regressed to the mindset of a 2-year-old who is sitting in the corner, arms folded, eyes averted, after just having thrown a major kicking and screaming temper tantrum. Pouting. Knowing there's really not a lot that can be done. Or is there?

So I was watching TV a few weeks ago and saw an advertisement for Lumosity.com. It's this website where you can do brain-training exercises. (And, by the way, I think that's the thing I tried to memorize one night--the something I mentioned in here on the first blog post.) I went there. You get the first 3 days free. Seems kinda cool but I'm not paying their fee to play. I'll get out my mahjong games or something first. I did do the free three day thing. The games remind me of the old Nintendo, with the target gun (one game) and then a tiles thing, and ...hmmm...something else I don't remember. LOL! Guess that doesn't lend itself to a glowing recommendation, if I can't even remember the 3rd game! heh heh heh

But I do wonder...is it possible that a brain can be retrained to be as sharp and quick as it once was? It's weird, but I think it is. I just don't know how to go about doing it. (Suggestions, anyone?) I've been doing a lot of knitting, crochet, sewing...but they're all pretty solitary tasks and Nels is very quiet most days. We have not been watching a lot of TV these days. My grandma used to say that TV did little more than pickle the brain in its own juices. (I think she may have been right, by the way)  She called it "The Idiot Box." Hmmmmm. Theories, anyone?

I am rereading the 4 book series I wrote back in the early 2000's. In the 2nd one now. So much I didn't remember. I want to finish the 5th (almost done) and 6th (1/2 done) so I can do the 7th and call it good. I do think that writing would be a great brain exercise (hence I'm sitting here now). Vocabulary, keeping names, dates, faces and places right--although I usually use a cheat sheet for verification. It's scary when you forget stuff.

I don't really have any alzheimer's symptoms or I'd be panicking, not making fun of myself. It's more...like I just can't focus for long on any one thing. Jeez, if this is what my mom's always dealt with, I'm gonna be cutting her some serious slack from here on out. This sucks.

Sigh.

Back to it.

Have a good day.

Small Steps

Well, it's almost ten a.m. on Saturday morning. April 7th. My mom's birthday. I need to call her today and I hope I don't forget.

I had a couple of long talks with two of my closest friends this past week. Kymm and Georgia. I discussed my current malady with both of them.

Kymm: I hear what you're saying, Ang. It's--in a word--m-e-n-o-p-a-u-s-e. It's NORMAL. It'll pass. (I found myself believing her, completely. I just wonder if I'll still have friends/family when the day it's passed is over!)

G: Welcome to my world, sister. (Ahhhhh, G. It's good to know because misery loves company.)

However, neither of my friends' words fixed my problem. Shoot. I was hoping for some kind of miracle cure or...I don't know. Maybe a magic potion that I could take or practice that would bring back the ol' brain pan's contents into fully-functional gray goo. At least they didn't laugh at me.

It's so weird. I once took an I.Q. test. On a scale of 180, I hit a 168. I had a college prof, some years later, who said that I.Q. doesn't really measure any "intelligence quotient" but really tests a person's ability to concentrate. Instantly, I knew that he was right. It made sense. I'd always been able to look at something--anything--and be fixed on whatever it was. The color, shape, numeric value, fragrance, whatever. And it would affix itself into my memory. Now, I look at something and feel myself slipping...s i d e w a y s. Like only one small part of my mind can stay fixed. As if...well, the best illustration I can give is this:

• Imagine a five-foot-by-five-foot glass mirror on the floor. Now imagine a rock that's roughly the size of a softball smashing down into the center of the mirror. The center of the impact zone on the mirror is destroyed and there are concentric rings going outward from that impact crater. The glass has broken in all directions from that center of impact; large shards that extend from the center all the way out to the edges. 

THAT is how my thoughts feel when I'm doing...anything...lately. I remember seeing that image in my mind's eye all the way back in 2001 but it was still manageable. Now it feels like a snowball going down Mt. Hood (big snowy mountain in Oregon), picking up steam and getting bigger...and bigger and bigger. I'm unable to yank my thoughts back into some semblance of order. I could back in 2001.

So, how do I find my way back to the normal that I used to know? I'm sure there are exercises--brain exercises--that I could do. I'll have to give it some thought.

If I can remember to do so, that is.

I'm pretty blessed in my life. I want to live in those moments. I want to remember them, experience them fully, and participate completely. I want to be awake in my life, not just ...I don't know. Surviving? Not sure that's quite the right word, but as Dad used to say, "It's close enough for government work."

My kids, all four of them, make me proud and happy that they're mine. Each of them has some sort of stand-out quality. And nope, it's not just me, being their momma, that makes that true.

My first-born, Sophie, is almost 30. She was born three months before I turned 18 (I got married on my 16th birthday--eek!) back in 1982. She's beautiful (again, not just my opinion, but that of about everyone that's ever laid eyes on her), an extremely talented vocalist and she loves the Lord her God. She's my exotic-looking child. With almost asian features (her eyes, mostly), her gorgeous, lustrous, curly dark brown hair, full, red lips and easily-tanned skin, she's gorgeous. She's got a beautiful body and she works out doing kick-boxing. Works as a hairdresser by day and sings (I think it's more rap than singing, yikes) some evenings at local venues. She's been through some tough stuff during the past couple of years but she's come out of it pretty strong. So proud of her. I was worried there for a while but God really does protect what He owns. (Thank You, Jesus.)

My second-born, Amy, will be 29 in July. She was born barely after Sophie turned 1. She was the sweetest, smiliest baby. Even tempered, slept a lot, she was a joy. She has huge brown eyes, beautiful, light skin, full lips...she's a beautiful girl and the wife of a handsome, intelligent man. She has two little boys, Kyle (who'll be 2 in May) and Ethan, who was born in January. They are striking looking children; Kyle with his big brown eyes and perfect features and Ethan with his cobalt-blue eyes and amazing smile... Amy works as a paramedic with Rural Metro emergency services, as does her husband Matt. They love the Lord Jesus and make him the center of their lives. Amy has always been very bright and easily comprehends whatever task she sets for herself. She has a beautiful heart, mind and spirit. She is head-over-heels in love with her husband and children. She loves her momma (!!!) and her dad...and her step-parents. Stubborn to the core but usually 100% right in her values and decisions. She makes me proud. She's honest and straightforward.

Third: Paul-Michael. My only son. My earth-bound angel. I somehow knew he was male from the day I discovered I was expecting him. He was never any trouble, not from the day he was born. Compliant, kind, incredibly bright, respectful...he knew what he wanted to do with his life from the time he was seven. A pastor, like Rod Vermillion (our pastor back in those days) he would tell me. With his huge, deep-brown eyes, his (formerly) thick dark hair (which, sorry to say, has thinned out as he approaches 30, much like his father's did) and his 5-foot, 10-inch body, he is also a very attractive man of 27. He is an extremely talented vocalist, guitarist and drummer. He leads the worship team at church, preaches from time to time and has even officiated at a wedding (or more than one--not sure). He lives what he believes. He's so intelligent. He thinks before speaking (imagine??!) and always gives honest, thought-out replies to questions he's asked. He has the quickest mind and tongue when he's in a humorous mood. His humor-fed sarcasm just kills me. He makes me proud to be his mom, every day.

And fourth, Evie. Evangelina, actually. She will be 26 in November, which I still can hardly believe. I remember clearly being preggo with her, I remember the day she was born like it was yesterday. I remember holding her and being stunned that she had eyelashes over 1/2 inch long on the day of her birth...with fine, perfect eyebrows, a tiny rosebud mouth and a head full of black, shiny hair. If she'd been bigger (she was almost 6 weeks early and weighed just a bit under 6 lbs.), it would have been easy to imagine that she popped out of the womb at a year old! She did everything early. She crawled upright on hands and knees at 4 months (and she weighed just over 9 lbs. at the time--she was always tiny); ate things like ham and cheese sandwiches at 6 months; was walking--albeit a little tottery--by 10-11 months; started saying words other than ma-ma and da-da by 10 months and forming complete sentences by 14 months. She is the wife of Seth and the mommy of Elina and Bella. She is into recycling/repurposing, gardening, cooking from scratch and using only organically-grown foods. She is really bright, incredibly beautiful and one of the sweetest, most tender-hearted people...ever. She loves the Lord and teaches her babies about Him.

So, see...I have all the reason(s) in the world to get out of the blue funk. And I'm working at it. I have been thinking about the changes in my life over the past five years and there's one particular area that I've begun to pinpoint that I am beginning to believe is the root of my current...issues.

I never used to begin any project with even the thought of, "what if I fail?" or "what if I suck at this?" Not ever. I always thought (without conscious effort), "I could do that..." or, "Ooh! That's going to be fun and amazing WHEN I finish it!" I don't think that was arrogance; it just never dawned on me that failure might occur. And it never did. Seriously. I can't think of anything that didn't go just as I expected it to.

Is that an example of the "Law of Attraction?" The for-real land of "if you build it, they will come"? I am beginning to believe it is. If you THINK you'll fail, you will. If you KNOW you'll succeed, you will. All my life, that was how I lived, without putting a label on it.

Hmmmm. Could my newfound fears, my doubts...be causing this issue with my thinking skills? I THINK I won't remember, so in fact I don't?

Food for thought.

Life is an Orchard

A few days ago, I was sitting quietly in the living room. TV was off. No music was playing. Out here in the country (I was going to say the Ozark Mountains, but by Oregon mountain standards, these are just hills) it gets really quiet. My husband was outside turning on the sprinklers so that our newborn grass wouldn't turn yellow in this unseasonable heat. The dogs were in the backyard and for once they weren't barking or running or chasing anything. The only sound was the clothes dryer, and that was a soft, almost comforting sound back in the other end of the house. Almost inaudible.

I had picked up my MacBook and was about to write a note to a friend in Florida. I had FaceBook open (FaceBook and I have this like-hate relationship. Not LOVE-hate because on the best of days I don't LOVE it) and clicked on "Message" to send a note. I wanted to tell her hello, and share something meaningful because I usually just write short, unimportant stuff.

The dryer hummed on in the background.

My mind was semi-blank.

I closed my eyes and just tried to feel what I wanted to say but that didn't work because my mind began to fill up with a whole lot of nothing--and a bunch of jumbled up fragments of thought. It was like the days when my kids were little and they'd all talk at once. All four of them, all with different stories to tell.

I realized one thing. My brain does not work the way it used to. Of course this was not the first time I realized this. When it started happening about five years ago, I was 42. I didn't think about it much at the time because I was really going through a rough, stressful time. You're just on overload, I'd tell myself. Everyone has these problems when they have too much on their plate or in their life to cope. It'll pass. But it didn't. Pass, that is. It has gotten progressively worse.

And that, the worse part, is what brings me to this moment, sitting here in front of my computer, writing stuff down.

I've been able to read since I was 3 years old. I could write by 4 years old. I started writing little stories at about 5, before I started school. I still remember those stories. My grandpa McGhee (technically, my step-grandpa, because my "real" grandpa died in 1958, six years before I was born), who lived in the house next door with my grandma, used to bring me over to his house most mornings. My mom, who had just given birth to my younger sister (she was child six in our household, I was number five. I have four older siblings) didn't have much patience in dealing with my excessively inquisitive mind. But my grandparents did. Especially Grandpa Jack. John Frances McGhee was his name. Isn't that a wonderful name? Well, he would take my little hand, bring me into the house and into the fragrant-smelling kitchen where Grandma would inevitably be either cooking bacon or baking bread. Or pies. Or cookies. Or egg noodles. (The woman could COOK.) He'd give me a boost into one of those turquoise, plastic-formed chairs that looked like they'd been made by laying melty plastic over a giant egg. Then he'd get out the raggedy, old cigar box that was filled with about a hundred and fifty different sizes and shapes and colors of coloring crayons. With that twinkle in his eye, he'd whip out a few coloring books and let me take my pick of which one I wanted to color in.

All these memories are so crystalline-clear in my mind that I can still envision them as if they happened just yesterday.

Now, I don't know if it's still the same today, but back then, those coloring books all had a story of sorts that they would tell. At the bottom of each page was a sentence that the picture above would illustrate. All the pages together told a story, just like any other book. But, in order to color the picture, I had to read the words.  Grandpa meticulously taught me the alphabet (which I got the first day, because he sang it to me), and then how to identify certain sounds that letter combinations made. It didn't take long. My mom didn't know I could read until after we left the Oregon coast to live in the mid-Willamette Valley. I was almost four when she heard me reading out loud from my sister's Life magazine.

So, all that to say that I've had a sharp-edged brain from earliest memory.

Until the past few years.

My grandma used to say that "Life is an orchard." I didn't know precisely what she meant, but I thought I got the gist of it. Sometimes the crop is really great. Plentiful, sweet, crisp. Then some years, blight strikes. Or a late freeze ruins the baby fruit. Or bugs get in and wreak havoc. It's a crapshoot. So, I used to wonder, is life a crapshoot, too? I didn't think so. Not then.

I had a type of self-confidence that allowed me to do just about anything I set my mind to. I never thought of failure. Never allowed the possibility of failing enter my thought process. And it was never a conscious effort, keeping failure out of the options column. I just never had it cross my mind that I might fail at any given task. I would set out to learn something new, not just believing I could do it, but knowing I could.

And now, in the past five years, that knowing seems to be faltering. Is it just me getting older? Am I suffering from some malady that I don't know about yet? Or is it a case of recognizing the arrogance in that youthful immortality and discovering that I don't know everything, after all? I'm not sure. But there are days when I remember some past event and time and I feel the sting of embarrassment rising in my face and in my mind. Could I have ever been that cocky and sure? Because in the past few months, I second guess so much that I'm becoming confused about even the simplest of things.

Oh, my mental acuity is still there, the nuts and bolts of it. I can still read/write, still have no problem doing math or other scholarly things. It's remembering the little things that is getting hard. A phone number that I memorized one day, repeating it again and again, is lost by the next morning. And not only is the number gone, but the reason I was memorizing it in the first place...that's gone too. Oh, I can remember that I memorized it. But not what "it" is or why. It freaks me out a little.

Maybe a lot.

So I thought, maybe, if I write stuff down, it'll get better. I used to write just about everything in my journal. My thoughts, feelings and emotions...what I wanted to do, why I wanted to do it. My hopes and dreams of the future. Everything.

I used to have a lot of dreams. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I'd start dreaming. And I could remember my dreams, even the next day upon awakening. They told big stories that would make a 2-hour movie look short. I wrote books based on my dreams.

Now I still dream, but they seem very fragmented. Bits and pieces of a whole bunch of nothing. Nothing seems to be connected. Nothing seems to make sense or tell any stories. And these dreams, they're not the good, happy dreams I used to have. In these, there is chaos. And they're not based around me or my family, my husband or my friends. These have complete strangers in them, they're from locations all over the world and things are often gray. Or red with blood. Or broken glass. Broken concrete blocks and wrecked cars and fires. People crying and wandering in a daze, suffering great loss. The smell of plastic burning, or of gasoline-fed fires has become commonplace in my dreams.

So...is that what's causing this seeming dis-connect? This inability to experience everything in my life throughout each day is frustrating to me. It's like looking through a dirty glass window sometimes, where my life is playing out and I am only partly aware of it. Trying to remember small things, conversations I've had, items I've put away, etc., seems all but impossible sometimes.

The worst of it, though, is the memories of my life from age 12 or so to about 42. Not that those years were bad--they weren't.  They were, for the most part, very good. Or at least I thought they were. But the arrogance in my know-it-all mind back then just really embarrasses me now. It was, however, easier to get out of bed and face the day when I saw things through the lens of self-assuredness.

So now, I'd like to get some of my confidence back, only I'm not sure that it would be a good thing on all levels. The humility that I'm crawling around in right now...I think it's a good thing in some ways. But I'm not sure.

See? I am not sure. Ten years ago, I'd have never had that thought. I'd have KNOWN with certainty.

Now what?