Little Messes Everywhere

A stray cat, a 17-year-old, cornflakes, sourdough, and baseball all took me out this week.

Let’s start with perimenopause sucks. I am thankful that the medical community has finally started paying attention to this, which helps women feel seen and understood. I have to personally thank my doctor, Dr. A, for helping me through this insane journey. I take it upon myself to talk to every woman over 40 about the help available to her.

So this week, what broke me... yes, our stray cat. Why won’t the cat go into the nice house we got him? My seventeen-year-old, who is worried about said stray cat. Side bar, if you have a seventeen-year-old, you probably get a lot of grunts from them, so when I was woken up to “ Mom, mom, mom”, I felt like Mrs. Doutfire yelling, “Help is on the way, dear!” FYI, the seventeen-year-old wanted to tell me that our stray cat was meowing outside. The cornflakes, well, that was a midnight snack after the seventeen-year-old woke me up about the crying cat. And when I began eating, I realized I had fasting blood work in the morning. Even though that midnight snack of corn flakes tasted perfect, was I allowed to eat it? I don’t want to get into my sourdough (Eddie Breader) because I’m still too emotional to talk about it. Finally, baseball - first scrimmage of the year, and I’m running all over the field for the best angles to video the seventeen-year-old. AND a kid from the other team got hurt ( not by my seventeen-year-old), and I sat at the fence on the verge of tears because I know what that Momma was feeling about a potential season-ending injury.

Did this seem like one long run-on sentence? Good, because that is how my brain works-one chaotic sentence packed with emotions like sadness, grief, happiness, anger, and tears. There’s no crying in baseball, but sometimes, well, most times, it feels like my feelings are overflowing.

And men, if you see the ladies in your life reacting like this, know it is not you (ehhh, maybe it might be), but understanding that these feelings just happen can help you feel more compassionate and supportive.

Books to consider:

The New Menopause by Mary Claire Haver, MD

The Power of the Pause by Jillian Pransky