Introvert Meltdown

It's Friday night and my husband is still at work, so I am home alone without much to do.  Well, that's not exactly true.  I have things I should be doing, but just don't have the ability or will to do them right now.  This week has been one long experience that I refer to as "an introvert meltdown".  I've spent a lot of time with people the past couple weeks, have had very little sleep, have had a large amount of work to do, have been traveling, and have been sick.  I was pretty much done with the week before it started and I had to fight to get through each day, hoping for the weekend to come as quickly as possible.  Now the weekend is here and I am sitting at home processing things.

For those of you who are not introverts, the above paragraph may make no sense to you.  I'm sorry.  I have no reserves left to explain it to you.  For those of you who are introverts, I'm pretty sure you know what I'm talking about.

So, if I am in introvert meltdown mode, why am I blogging?  I don't know really.  I guess I'm hoping it will help me process things.  I have so many things I am feeling and thinking right now that I am somewhat confused as to how they all fit together and what I am supposed to do with them.  Writing has always helped me sort things out.  Writing also allows me to say things that I wouldn't usually say.  I guess, maybe, that's what this post is about.

 I haven't blogged in a while because I realized that I was becoming too concerned about how my posts would be received.  I was worried that people might be offended by something I said or would misunderstand me and my thoughts.  I was afraid that people would judge me for asking questions and exploring certain topics.  So, I quit writing.  Unfortunately, my brain did not stop thinking or wondering and my opinions did not stop forming or suddenly refuse to make themselves known. Instead, my head has become filled with all the things I am thinking, wondering about, questioning and there was no outlet for it except my poor husband.  I'm pretty sure he has wanted to stuff my mouth with thick socks, of the wool variety for extra sound-proofing, these past few months.  Since that is not a scenario I am fond of, I've decided to try blogging again.  In general, I don't much care what people think about me these days.  Perhaps I am getting old and cranky, or perhaps I have just figured out that people's opinions and behaviors have more to do with who and what they are than anything I said or did.  Who knows.  Whatever the reason may be, I am less concerned with how people respond to this blog and more focused on how I can use it as it was always intended to be used - as an outlet for me to express myself and explore different ideas and topics.

Because this week has been such an epic introvert meltdown for me, I thought that blogging about it would help me get through it.  I've tried a few other things, but they didn't really work.  I've had more calories, sugar intake, and carb loading in the past 5 days than in all the prior 30 days combined.  Maybe that's not true, but it really feels like it is.  I haven't been running in 2 weeks, which is making all this bad eating feel even more terrible.  In all honesty, though, I don't really feel that bad.  I know that come Monday I will be back to my routine and will be running and working out again.  My determination to be in better shape has never been higher and I feel that I am slowly but surely making lifestyle changes that have stuck.  Two of those changes are regular exercise and eating better.  In order to maintain those changes, I know that I have to return to my routine next week, so it will happen.

Besides eating my weight in desserts and fatty foods, I have also done a lot of yelling this week.  Most of it has been in my car or at home, and thankfully I did not actually yell at anyone, although I did yell while talking to Mr. Darcy a few times.  I did make it clear that I was not angry with him and was not yelling at him, but I'm not so sure he appreciated the distinction.  I was surprised by how much yelling I did this week and how angry I was about various things.  As I am processing it, I realize that I am probably not all that angry at those things; they just presented as easy targets for my wrath.  If I am completely honest, my anger is mostly due to things about my life that I see as unfair or unjust and the realization that I am powerless to do anything about them.  I am angry that someone I was taught to love and trust used their position of power to wreak havoc and destruction on so many people.  I am angry that there is no justice for the crimes they committed and that their family continues to commit.  I am angry that having a child is so damn difficult and that no one seems to have any answers as to why my body is not working.  I am mad as hell that in order to get medical help for having a child I have to pay the equivalent of the price of a new car because medical companies here in the US feel that families struggling with infertility are the perfect people to get a lot of money from.  I know that if I could just find a way to stop being angry over these things, I would likely stop being angry enough to yell at the guy who cut me off in traffic.  I also know that part of having a meltdown means having less reserves to handle the things that bother you.  Next week I will not be in meltdown mode.  Next week I will not yell at the cars on the road with me, at least not every day. :)

One thing I have not done too much of this week, despite wanting to on many occasions, is cry.  I am a crier.  It's how I relieve stress.  This week, though, I could not cry.  I wanted to.  I felt like it.  But no tears came.  That was hard for me.  Particularly since last weekend I had to stop myself from crying on numerous occasions when it would not have been a good thing.  When I got home and could cry, I was so aggravated that I could not. Part of me wonders if I would have made it through the week if I had.  I might have just hit "done" mode and then had to sit on my couch for a day while I collected myself.  Again, I know that will sound strange to many of you who have never had an introvert meltdown, but, trust me, it's nothing to be alarmed about.  Now that the weekend is here, I actually did have a good cry tonight and have plans to sit on my couch with Mr. Darcy tomorrow and collect myself while he collects himself.

Sometimes processing things means allowing yourself to acknowledge pain and grief.  Not everyone cries when they grieve, but I do.  As I process the past few weeks and reflect on what lies ahead of me, there are certain painful memories and experiences that I am working through and there are realizations and decisions that I am coming to terms with.  These memories, experiences, realizations, and decisions have contributed to my introvert meltdown and I am glad that I now have a couple of days to process and recover in the solitude of my home.

So, here I am at the end of my blog post and I am feeling much better.  I certainly feel less like I am having a meltdown.  I will still need the weekend to recover and I will likely not see anyone but my dog and my husband.  I will become a recluse and recharge my social batteries so I can again see people on Monday.  The things I am angry about or upset about will not go away, but I will have more reserves for handling them.  I will have a million thoughts and questions race through my mind and I will ponder a variety of things from neuroscience to community programs and maybe even politics.  Maybe I will write about those things and maybe it will help me not have another introvert meltdown for a while. :)

Days When It Hurts To Be a Woman

I love being a woman.  I love that I am different from men.  I don't wish that I was anything other than who and what I am.  However, there are some days when it hurts to be a woman.  There are days when it is dark and painful to to live as a female.  On those day, I don't wish that I wasn't a woman, but I do wish that my life and my story as a woman was different.

I've blogged before about my struggle with infertility.  My husband and I have been trying for 3 years to conceive.  Almost 2 years ago we got pregnant and then we lost the baby.  Since then we've had a series of unfortunate medical issues and scheduling conflicts that have only made it harder to attempt to get pregnant.  Still, all excuses aside, we should have already had at least one child.  Yet, for some unknown reason we have not been blessed with one.

Not being able to conceive and carry a child to full term has an impact on me and the way I view my femininity.  For some reason, I'm not sure exactly what, not being able to have children feels like an insult to my womanhood.  It's almost as though I feel like less of a woman because of it.  I know that may sound ridiculous to many of you, but, in a world that for centuries has revered the reproductive abilities of women, I feel like a failure as a woman because my body has not been able to reproduce.  It's almost as though my female membership card is not fully validated unless I can have children.  This would be different if I chose not to have children; but I did not.  I want children.  I want to be a mother so very desperately.

As you can probably imagine, or as you might know if you have tried to conceive, every month presents a roller coaster ride of hoping and praying while you wait to see if you were successful, and then grieving and processing when it is apparent you were not.  This month was no different for me, except, perhaps, I didn't have quite as much hope.  I can feel a numbness and a resignation creeping into my heart and I do not have the energy to fight it off.  In the past few months I have told myself that it is probably for the best and that, clearly, I was not meant to be a parent.  I have told myself that my life is happy and wonderful and that I will not feel the pain of not being a parent too greatly.  I have told myself that I must have done something to deserve this, and so, I should not complain.  And I have quietly agreed with each of these crazy, ridiculous thoughts because 3 years of hoping, praying, grieving, and processing is a lot of work, and my reserves are starting to dry up.

Today I am at the beginning of a new reproductive cycle, which means I am bleeding.  Menstruation is not an experience for the faint of heart.  That's why I firmly believe that any woman who has a regular menstrual cycle is pretty much capable of anything.  Since my miscarriage, my cycles have been incredibely painful.  I cramp for days and feel generally disgusting.  My cycle has created numerous embarrassing moments over the past few months that have left me feeling powerless over my body and it's apparently twisted way of expressing it's womanhood.  Today I had one of those moments, and it led me to ponder this strange conundrum of being able to have a monthly reproductive cycle, but not being able to reproduce.  How strange, how cruel that I must endure the pain and discomfort that signifies I am a woman of reproductive age and yet I CANNOT have a child.  It's as though my own body is throwing taunts and insults at me, and doing it when I am most vulnerable.  How do I endure this?  What do I do with this?  I have always viewed the ability to have children as a redeeming quality of having to endure a monthly cycle.  What am I supposed to do with it or think about it if I do not have the ability to do something useful with it?  What is the point?

I don't have an answer.  I don't know what to think.  I am saddened and weary from the pain and the heartache.  If I am trying to be positive, I would say that I am grateful for the heartache because it means I still have some hope.  But I am not being positive.  I am angry at my body for betraying me and then throwing its betrayal in my face.  I am hurt that I have failed at something that is fundamentally a part of being a woman, and I am scared that there is nothing I can do about it.  Today it hurts to be a woman,

Women Who Inspire Me Series: Post 1

I've been thinking about starting this blog series for a while and just haven't gotten around to doing it.  I guess that's a hazard of having too many great ideas and not enough energy/drive/will power to actually get them all done.  Anyhoo, it's been pressing on me for a while and I want to start it, at the very least.  Hopefully, I will finish it as well.

Most people who know me well know that I have long been a champion of all things female.  I feel that there is not enough celebration of, respect for, or admiration for the 50% of the population who play a large role in insuring the population continues.  I realize that not everyone feels that way, and that's ok.  But I do, and my blog has always been a place for me to celebrate and challenge what it means to be female in the world I experience.  In my quest to capture what it means to be female, I have been fortunate enough to come across some amazing women who have inspired me, challenged me, and encouraged me to continue my journey.  I would like to pay homage to those women with this series.  With each new post, you will see women who are different ages, have different lifestyles, who express themselves differently.  What I hope you will notice is the same courage, determination, strength, and beauty that defines all of them.   These are the women who inspire me:

Blondie
The woman I want to start this series with is a dear friend of mine.  Let's call her "Blondie".  Blondie and I have known each other all our lives.  I find it fascinating and awe-inspiring that I have known this girl for so long and yet she continues to inspire me.  She's always been "spunky", as she was called when we were kids.  When I was younger, I thought of her as fearless.  Now that I'm older, I realize Blondie is not fearless, she is courageous.  She has fear (just like all of us), and yet, she continually steps into situations and experiences that post people would shy away from.  Blondie loves to experience life and she strives to live life to the fullest.  She does not let fear or self-doubt keep her from what she wants.  That's amazing to me.  She wakes up every day with all the same or similar feelings and emotions I do and she makes the decision to keep fighting for her dreams.  In order for you to understand what an amazing feat that is, you need to know a little more about Blondie.

Blondie was born and raised in a less than stellar environment.  She was put down a lot, criticized a lot, and told she was bad through and through.  Her love of life was criticized as being rebellious and perverted.  She struggled in school, and instead of her learning difficulties being identified and addressed, she was told she was lazy and rebellious and was punished repeatedly.  I think it's safe to say that Blondie was misunderstood and misidentified for much of her childhood.  I'm pretty sure that most of the adults in her life weren't confident she would ever make anything of herself.  Yet, Blondie didn't let her rough childhood define her.  She chose to make something good out of it.  I'm pretty sure her determination and ability to be an incredibely hard worker are the result of her childhood experiences.  Blondie also managed to completely ignore the things she was told as a child and instead learn to believe in herself.  She is one of the most beautifully confident women I know.  She is aware of her flaws, but she does not try to hide them.  She is honest about who she is while still being proud of who she is.  She is always working to make herself better without losing sight of how great she already is.  That's a huge feat for a any woman, much less a woman like Blondie.

Today, Blondie is a wife and the mother of 2 beautiful children.  While she was pregnant with her second child, she put herself through school so she could pursue a career she thought she would be good at.  While raising her children, she has worked part-time to help provide financially for her family.  Her work schedule and life schedule have been chaotic and not easy to deal with, but you won't hear her complain about it.  She simply gets up every day and does what needs to be done, while looking fabulous, I might add. :)  She has made some hard choices and been criticized for those choices, but she has stood by them because she believed they were the best thing for her family.  At times she has been afraid that she was failing miserably, but she has never allowed the fact that she will make mistakes stop her from trying to be the best wife and mother she can be.  She is, honestly, one of the best mothers I know.  I have watched her be a mother for more than 5 years, and I am continually in awe of the masterful way in which she balances love, patience, discipline, and encouragement.  I can only hope that one day I am as good as she is at being a mother.

There's so much more I could say about Blondie and how much she inspires me.  There is no way to capture it all in this one post.  What I do hope I captured was the amazing woman she is.  Blondie inspires me to continually work to be the best version of myself that I can be.  She challenges me to be confident in myself, to be a hard worker without complaining about my circumstances.  She encourages me to keep fighting for my dreams and to not be afraid to try.  Knowing Blondie makes me more courageous and more determined.  I am a better person because she is in my life.

Happy Friday!

It's been a long week.  I won't say it's been a necessarily tough week, but it's definitely been long.  Returning to work after a holiday weekend is always hard.  It's ten times harder when you worked most of that "holiday" weekend.  After returning to work I thought things were going fairly well, then I started feeling "off".  I was crazy emotional and felt the urge to cry at the drop of a hat.  This is not usual for me; far from it in fact.  As most of you who have been following this blog for the past year know, Mr. Darcy and I have been trying to get pregnant for almost 2 years now.  Feeling strangely hormonal can indicate that a woman is pregnant.  Being the logical creature that I am, a small tiny hope crept into my mind - "What if this is it??".

Then, two days into my week, by basal body temperature dropped.  For those of you who are not familiar with fertility and how a woman's body works, a drop in your basal body temperature towards the ends of a woman's menstrual cycle is usually a sign that any egg that was released was not fertilized and the uterus should start shedding it's lining in preparation for the next cycle.  This is not good news for someone who is trying to conceive and is hoping they are pregnant.  My ever hopeful self desperately hoped that the drop was a fluke and that the next day my temps would be back up and I could still possibly be pregnant.  Tuesday was filled with more hormonal ridiculousness - headaches, nausea, high levels of emotions.  Wednesday morning my temp was down again.  It was a sure thing now.  All hope of being pregnant was completely gone.  All there was to do now was wait for this cycle to end and the next one to start.  The headache and crazy emotions hung around.

Thursday morning I woke up to a searing headache and another drop in temperature.  By this point I knew the headache was hormone related and all I could do was wait until my cycle started and hope the hormones would balance out.  I took the first half of the day off so I could rest.  While resting, I decided I had had enough of letting my body run my life.  I got up, got dressed, and went to work.  It was a slow day at the office and most of my clients ended up cancelling their appointments any way.  By the end of the work day my headache had subsided substantially and I decided to go ahead and go running as planned.  Physical exercise can help balance your hormones, and I was hoping it would help with mine.  Plus, I have been running consistently now for that past 7 weeks and I was determined to not let anything get in the way of my continuing this, including feeling crappy. (Side note: I ran my first 5k on Thanksgiving morning.  I actually ran 2/3 of the course and was super proud of myself for doing it.  Big shout out to my wonderful husband who pushed me to do it).

So, after work yesterday, I went running.  As I started running, I began to feel better.  I hit a mile and barely felt winded, so I kept going.  I kept going until I had done 2 miles, and when I finished I realized I had shaved 30 seconds off my mile time.  As I was running, I focused on pushing through everything I had experienced this week.  As my feet pounded the track, I imagined pounding into the ground all my frustration, all my fears, all my sorrows.  Got a headache - pound, pound, pound.  Feel like a weepy, weak lump of a person - pound, pound, pound.  Still not pregnant - pound, pound, pound.  I will keep going - pound, pound, pound.  I refuse to be a sad, mopey wreck of a person - pound, pound, pound.  I will fight to be the best version of me I can be - pound, pound, pound.

After my running/therapy session, I went home feeling super proud of myself and physically feeling much better.  With the mental clarity that running brings, I found myself laughing at the humor in the long week.  I don't know about any of you, but, when I'm tired or hormonal, some really silly things happen.  So, despite the fact that this week was a long week, there were some really funny moments.  Maybe you can relate to some of these:

It might have been a long day if you hear Dean Martin sing "Rudy the red-beaked reindeer" as something entirely different, and then realize with a sigh of relief that a song that old could not really be that inappropriate.

You might be crazy hormonal if you find yourself getting weepy-eyed over the words to "Hark the Herald Angels Sing".  That is a happy song, right?!?

It might have been a long week if you find yourself laughing gleefully and doing a little jig when your last client of the day calls 30 minutes before their appointment to say they are not coming.

You *might* have run away hormones if, while watching a documentary about Arctic animals, you start crying uncontrollably when a baby beluga whale is stranded on a beach and might die, and then what to cheer madly when the tide comes just in time to rescue him.

You might have had a long week and/or be hormonal if all you can think about is getting home to gorge yourself on chocolate and ice cream.  Don't worry, I didn't do this, but it was mostly due to not having enough time to do it, rather than any great amount of self-control. :)

If you have no idea what I am talking about and have never experienced any of those things, well, at least you get to laugh at my awkward moments in life.  And now, the long week is almost over.  I have 3 days of rehearsals and a production at the end of the weekend to look forward to, and then this super long, super hormonal week will be over.  I then get to have more long weeks with, I'm sure, their own hurdles to get over.  However, as long as those weeks offer me more humorous opportunities to laugh at myself, I will be doing well.  Happy Friday, everyone!!  I hope your weekends are a celebration of rest and relaxation from whatever your week brought you. :)