Menopause and Infertility

So hey there loves.
Yesterday was menopause day, aka CD 366. One full year with no period.

The past year has been filled with chin pimples and fading hair, skin that is thinning everywhere, showing the impact of gravity and estrogen loss.

As someone who lived, it seemed, cycle to cycle for so many years.  A late cycle would bring hope then torment and sadness. The year before last was a year of long periods, of wondering more than once if maybe, just maybe........ but then a panic would set it, what if? and what if I had a loss? And I think that might have happened but I did not check with sticks or temping... just waited things out.

Once, my first long cycle, I was sure I was pregnant. And the mixture of emotions was profound.  Amazement.  Fury. Hope. Fear. and then, when the bleeding started, such immense loss.  And then, the next time, I mostly felt loss, that I was officially out of the zone of possibility, no way for a good outcome even if... and to feel my body changing, to see it changing.... well, some changes are easier than others.

So today marks perhaps the first day of not wondering.
A feeling of in between. No longer that.  Not yet wholly and fully this.

Maiden, mother, crone. and the middle one holy moly mo-cro.
I am both.

not a day goes by where I don't feel wonder, even if it is wonder and madness.

So here we are.  in the middle of the middle.

the end of the year

so here we are at the end of the year, and I am thinking about what i have learned. I learned I need to create, in ways that feel creative to me, as I am doing the work, letting the work through me, it is not optional. it is nourishment. it is essential. I have learned that too much work is not the blessing it may appear to be, but can impact everything in ways that feel like suffocation. that right work in right amounts is delicious. i have learned that my body and mind are brave and that my panic was/is pain trying to express itself. be heard. be understood. be accepted. and pushing it down and away is impossible. pull up a chair and listen, katekate. That is what it needs. after panic I need rest. full rest. sleep or distraction. I need to refill. i have learned I am not good at that. I bullshit myself. I am excellent at that. time to trade a little of my excellence in bs into excellence in self care. unapologetic. simply necessary. i have learned that I need connection that is simple. and I need conversations that are complex. that I need beauty that is simple. and beauty that is beyond imagining. I need to make space(s) for myself and within myself to hold who I am growing into, so I don't take the shape of an old container like a pot bound plant. I define the shape by my growing. i have learned that loving others is what I am here to do. and that others includes me. i have learned that doing my best work means telling the truth, even silently to myself. i have learned that I can speak, and that the listening is not up to me. but that I can speak in ways that make it more likely to be heard. I have learned that my enthusiasm can be a deterrent. too much. and the best I can do is laugh and call it what it is, and know that it is a filter. if I am too much, then maybe the work is not the right work, or the person is not the right fit, or the time is not right. my enthusiasm is a gift. but so is my conscious awareness of others. let me bring both together more harmoniously in the new year. i have learned that my changing body does not mean I have to reject myself because I am no longer familiar. it is an invitation to renew my own familiarity with this place I call home. recognizing I am in a time of rapid and chaotic transition. my needs will change as fast as my topography and my chemistry, and i need to cultivate self compassion, curiosity and fluidity in adapting. I have learned that love can be deep and distant, can be simple and complicated. that I can love and be loved and not understand or be understood. and that understanding is simply not as necessary as acceptance. If I wish to be accepted as myself. i need to accept others as themselves too. it goes both ways. both. in and out. out and in. like breath. i have learned that my mosaic of friends and family create the reality of my support system. that no one can hold the whole of my needs and no one should. I have learned to be a better piece in the mosaic of others'. I cannot be everything to anyone else either. i have learned that i know shit about parenting and my history of abuse and codependence makes this so so hard as I dance the crazy impossible certain to fail dance of conflict avoidance... but am doing my best with a smart sensitive spirited sprite whose energy outpaces mine like an Australian sheep dog. i am learning the difference between reacting and responding. this, my friends, is slow painful learning. i have learned how much of my life is tethered by a self I tend to so rarely. the one who is me. not the roles, the duties, the actions, the work. but this kateness, this one. this one who sits and writes and words come out like salty water of tears of joy and relief, face turned upwards toward whatever is out there, that connects with all and the everything, including all that is in here.

7

Somehow through miracles bigger than I will ever understand, Della is 7 today. She is immense and beautiful. Smart and funny. Snarky and tender and spirited. She is magical and complicated. Sensitive.
She is not yet independent or resilient or patient or empathetic. She is an only child who wants and believes she needs full immersion intensity, attention, interaction, responsiveness. School is hard, structure is not hard but noise is, and chaos, and no space for quiet. She arrives home tired and hungry. And needing to be internal. So in she goes, but near by.  barks out needs: Toast!  More toast! while her screen saves her with magical worlds the way mine once did with the original Star Trek and no I am not kidding.

I have rarely known anyone so often and deeply disappointed and disapppointable. Or someone with as lovely and contagious a smile and laugh and true silliness.  She knows we are here,  but aches for us to be closer. No longer wants kisses, will negotiate for hugs.

parenting in the time of consent is curious.  Yes it is your body but we NEED to wash it.

and me, oh I am missing the snuggles. I am missing being the throw pillow that held her weight even if not her attention. And as I try to reconnect with my own independence. My own patience. My own resilience. I am strung deep and hard into empathy and anxiousness, my desire to avoid discomfort a true pathology that gets in the way of joy and experience.  And I am navigating like a new driver with a standard transmission, too many pedals, too abrupt a change causes a lurch or a stall or a fearfilled rolling backwards as I forget all I know, emergency brake, flashers, ignition, my ability to walk or sit still or wait or think. there is a perpetual immediacy that I feel in parenting, and am learning (SLOWLY) to create gaps.  longer and longer.  between a thing and a response while still being responsive.  I can say, let me think about that. I can say, hm. I'm not sure.

Parenting means parenting me too.  this weirdness of finding out all the areas I've glosssed over with make do skills.  la la la avoidance. la la la.   well hello there unfinished business, guess I will scooch over and make some more room for you at this big ole table of other things I need to address.    learning and learning and relearning. not always comfortable.  no, that's a lie.  not comfortable nearly ever.   I reposted something on FB today, a great quote posted by someone who posts great quotes. 

Robert Kaplan

“You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”
Benjamin Mee, We Bought a Zoo

 I cannot promise the same.  Something great may not come of it.  But as I am learning my tiny brave steps.  my tiny insane moments of courage.  I can say that they are their own tiny greatness.  Look, I can say, look. I am trying.  I am pushing beyond what I knew or know. I am thinking of things differently.  I am willing to try to change.   Panic still has fun with me. A recent Lyme diagnosis has not been resolved with doxy. I wonder as I move forward who I am and what will stay, what will go. and how I will adjust to what my body feels like whatever that turns out to be. the same way I wonder who I am and what will stay in the wake of so many years of struggling with panic. I know I am still here. but also ever evolving. ever changing.

Last night, I tucked a sleeping Della into bed after reading, and I felt teary.  A deep ache for time passed and passing.  the preciousness of it all. and the impossibility of the adage to treasure and remember every moment. Some moments suck and are not treasured. Many go unnoticed in the act of being and doing and folding and working. Almost none can be remembered for me.  I know I held that baby full time for nearly a year. And yet, my memory is nearly a dream. the curve of her cheek. her ear. Her eyebrows. the way her chin dimples. Now stretched into a strong 7 year old who cartwheels in the living room, dances, and cries every single time she needs a bath. That, at least, remains the same. A touchpoint that connects the beginning to the now.

 

rose colored glasses

Hello world.
here we are in January, and I am sitting at my desk having just cleaned the living room as much as I could in one hour.
One hour to take the tree down and vacuum the billion needles from the carpet, to push back, pile up, drag, dust, and make a dent in the squalor that just happens, magically, when I am not constantly tending.

It is rather horrifying how fast things turn to shit, and also just what "clean" looks like now-- proving, truly, that everything is relative.

I was so wanting to "finish" the job, but the job, I think (I know), is unfinishable.

This is about progress, and then holding it or returning to it, or something. But this is not, apparently, about truly cleaning or truly finishing.

So, fueled by warmed up tea and honeyed up toast, here I am. Needing to return to workwork but after a truly aggravating day yesterday work-wise where I discovered that the website I am working on looks like shit too, not even in a living room way, well.
today will be about starting over.
But. Not quite yet.


I wanted to say that
Little miss Della is a fierce companion, and she is every bit the mini teenager with stubborn righteousness that is both fabulous and maddening and
oh
she is so tender.

I know my tenderness and am surprised by my fierceness.
I know her fierceness and am surprised by her tenderness.

this is about staying open to what is, not what I think I know, or what I want or wanted for me or for anyone... this is about this moment. this joy. this fierce tenderness and tender fierceness. this is about a million kinds of love. this is about taking notice of what is working with such intense gratitude. this is about taking notice of the ordinary moments that are truly extraordinary.  this is about reveling, it really is.

I posted the following images on facebook but realize that my incremental updates have been there of late... but I am pulling back from that particular soul sucking vortex, not completely because apparently I am addicted to seeing other people's lives through rose colored glasses... but pulling back, yes, to better appreciate and revel in my own fabulous imperfect reality.
So I will leave with you a few things that make me very very very very very happy-- no rose colored glasses necessary.

Best. dad. ever.

Della at 2.75 going on 14

My wee teenager.

We are in the thick of it, rolling eyes, crossed arms, humphing. The impatience and impertinence.  

It would be more funny if I were less tired, more capable. Hey, I do realize this: this is about doing the best you can. Sometimes that is pretty good, sometimes it isn't, it's awkward and I spend my day uglyfaced, short tempered and unfun. But sometimes, sometimes it is pure magic.

She is immense, people, truly. Immensely herself. All of this will serve her well later in life.

She is immense, and she is encouraging me to become more than I ever imagined.

What an awkward gift that is.

No, I say, No. No a million ways, a million times.

I disappoint. I just do. It's built in. If you told me that I would do this, over and over, knowingly, I would have told you you were crazy, it is * SO UNKATE*.

But here I am.

And however unfun the moments, 

however awkward some of the gifts,

however tired my tired ass truly is (it is no longer dragging, dragging indicates motion, and motion indicates energy)

however much I fantasize about sleep or resilience or reserve or calmness in the face of it all

however much I fantasize about whatever it was I fantasized about when I still had braincells

this

this is so much MORE.

pure magic, with a side of snark.

3 Della photos

Projects with Momma Sally (my beautiful Mom):

rain

in this moment, our first, real hard spring rain is falling...
coming down as if it's been thrown.
suddenly the air smells *so clean*
and every tiny new green thing is instantly impossibly greener.

I can almost hear the grass growing.
(I imagine it sounds like a subterranean version of sneakers on a basketball court)

remembering how to walk.

Each season, my eyes learn something new. This spring, I learned that the papery leaves on the beech trees that last, miraculously, all winter-- get pushed off by these long spiny spiraled furls of new leaves. The old leaves are parchment. The new ones begin as dark red tips on gray brown twigs.

I walked. I walked in the woods.

In the old days, this would have been nothing to remark on. The walking I mean. The beech leaves would have been worth remarking any day.

But the walking. Remember how i used to walk? I hiked every day, or most days. I spent time outdoors every day. Sometimes in the garden. Sometimes in the hammock. But outside. looking long and far (sky and stars) or close at flowers and roots and dirt.

I walked and breathed fresh air and felt my muscles push me uphill, and slow me down on the descents.  I walked and walked and walked.

I walked.

I have missed it. OH how I have missed it.

Della and I climbed into the thicket beside the big overgrown apple tree, up behind the garage thingy that holds the tools for maintenance here at our apartment building. We made a hole through the branches of the tree, the branches of the bushes next to it, and suddenly were under the tree, a mystical umbrella of branches and sky. Oh loveliness.

Then up behind the tree into the woods.  Woods with tiny tiny pinecones. Woods with fallen branches to step over. Woods with fallen leaves. Woods filled with deer poop.  Woods that smelled like woods and dirt and life.  Up the hill toward the clearning I could feel by the light.  And to the edge of the back side of the golf course! What a surprise that was. I did not know that is where this property ended.  The rustic local course that feels like it is far away. I realize now, the roads fold back, and the clearing makes sense now that I know it. But it felt like a surprise, like I was expecting sheep up there. Not greens.  

We turned back and came downhill again, back under the tree, through the branches, and back into the small slice of grass before the parking lot.  It was a small walk, but a very big walk. I spent so much time thinking about it. How the woods have been there much longer than I have lived here (of course), and of course I look at them and look at them and look at them.  But then, that day, something shifted. The light maybe. My perspective. The woods, I realized, could be hiked through.... it was like an epiphany. And it felt *possible* for the first time. A walk! Yes, with Della. Yes, holding hands and lifting over logs and under branches, and no don't pick that up it's poo. And yes....

And up there, a beech tree. Parchment leaves littering the ground underneath, with a few still on the branches...and new furled leaves waiting.

***

Totally gratuitous Della photo and me, smiling, and leaning wayyyyyy over to compensate for the DellaGrande.  From friday at my Mom's.

light, in three parts

Am sitting with sun coming in
tea warming me after an unexpectedly COLD shower (ug)
and just am trying to gather myself together.

I was going to be taking a goal oriented trip today, a solo trip. A long-ass drive trip. An all-day-in-the-car trip.  An at least one-part-shitty, one-part-maybe-healing kind of trip. But then I realized I was not ready, not really, and I am trying to be ok with that.  I try not to dwell here on shitty history, but sometimes it just is what I am dealing with. This year will be the 10 year anniversary of Jeff's death, and I realized, somewhat to my own surprise, that I was maybe ready to do some things I was not even able to think about a short while ago. One is to find a place to have a marker. A touchstone in the most literal sense. And this must be in the upper reaches of the state, in a place I know he loved. And I was going to go today to meet with a cemetery sexton to talk plot selection, etc. And it turns out, not surprisingly, that the place I picked from the map, upon further reflection, is not the right place. And yes, there is a right place. I have been there before, just long ago and far away. I will remember it when I see it. But I need to go, first. I need to go and look and feel my way toward the place I am remembering. And that will suck differently. Then I can talk plot and narrative arc and denouement. I was to leave well before dawn today to get there for a meeting time, then home again I hoped by dinner. Instead, I am here.

Here.

My beloveds are off eating pancakes, and I am needing to work since I can (I cannot when Della is here, our place is too small, and we are too interactive), and instead of diving into work I just played a bit with something I've been wanting to learn to do-- text along a curve

And I am stoked since it just simply worked.
Yes, I am an engineer by training, but I know no one more persistently thwarted by technology. So when I have success, it is like the biggest surprising YES ever, since my view of technology is that it should either be completely transparent (JUST WORK), or delight me. And this view persists, oh how it persists, in spite of my repeated experiences to the contrary.

So while I gather my expectations for the day while practicing more than a bit of self compassion, I wanted to write since I have been missing words here for a while. Sharing lovely images of Della is wonderful, (see below where Doug helps her look little for just a little longer), but words heal me differently and sometimes I forget that it is important not to hold it all back and down and hope it just magically resolves. There is healing when I let the light in.

another from easter

some kind of spring

all night it snowed. then it snowed all day.
tiny flakes that zipped down, straight and fast
big fluffy flakes that meandered
snow that came down hard and closed the space between my window and the apple tree
snow that blew sideways in cartoon spirals
snow that shhhhhhhhhhhed against the windows
snow that was silent
snow that piled up and fell off the trees, or got blown off in big white sheets
snow that stuck to the pine needles, the divots in the bark
snow that still weighs down the branches
snow that the plow truck pushes up against mountains of older snow, iced into place
snow that softened all the edges into curves
snow that holds long morning shadows like lattice

yesterday, every kind of snow...
but today? spring.

first hair cut, penguins and imagination

First: penguins. No, not my most embarrassing but sincere penguins-in-flight issue of last year, no no... this one is
RANDOM PENGUINS
seriously, my friends, worth a look, often a laugh.

Second: Della's first haircut. I mean, not just the cut off the random tangle, but a real ok, pretend-I'm-Brave edward scissor-hands sort of topiary frenzy quick before she freaks out, here's some chocolate bits... resulting in a wad-o-hair that was, well, just shy of three bags full:

A pre-cut photo from NOVEMBER for comparison:

And immediately post-haircut from monday with headband

And without (a little too neat, methinks, but hey, it will grow wild again)

 

I do have a massive regret, two actually-- one, of course, is not taking an immediately-before-photo.
And second, that I did not take a photo (or have one taken) of her wildhair in silhouette before cutting it. It was MAGNIFICENT in every way except anything that had to do with practicality. And I swear, it was getting the kind of knotted that turns to dreads and we are not ready to go there.  Maybe later but not quite yet.  So now I feel compelled to let it grow back out so we can get that photo. Ahhh regret. You suck rocks.

I've been having trouble with finding products.  Some from Mixed Chicks sounded *so promising* but they were SO INTENSELY SMELLY I literally could not use them.  Not just fragranced but so highly fragranced, that really, just, no. I mean, no way. I did not even put them on her hair.

Now we are using a california baby detangle spray in "CALMING" (for momma) and it smells wonderful and not strongly of anything once on, but it not quite moisturizing enough.  Ok internet land, suggestions? any other wildhaired babies out there with fine curly insane manes?  Anything NOT SMELLY that works for moisture?

Della talks about her big blue car and her big blue house. She talks about "tomorrow". (We will go in my big blue car to my big blue house tomorrow to play with friends)

We play make believe as often as possible-- I ask her questions about her stories and totally enjoy every single moment of everything.

She is singing and making up words to songs we know, and oh, it is really funny. Mary had a big blue car, big blue car.... yeah. I am loving the imagination stuff more than I can articulate.

Sprogblogger recently had a post that included a list of books that her beloved Henry is devouring.
I love books. I love reading. Reading has saved my ass, fed my soul, transported me away and toward, educated me, opened my mind, fulfilled me, left me longing and breathless, made me laugh, taken me on journeys, fed me feasts, ohhhhhhhh reading.
I imagined this: every day I would read to Della and every night we would read before bed.
Reality: sometimes we read, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we binge and read and read and read, and then days pass without one book.
OH how that pains me, but it is our reality. It is her rhythm.
I read one whole chapter of wind in the willows out loud while she played on day. But that was exactly once.  Play, for Della, is INTERACTIVE. Yes indeed.
So that was anomalous.

The llama llama books are way too intense for my sensitive little one (we are working on emotional stuff other ways),  so although there is a great love of llamas, we don't read them at all.
YAY for everything from Sandra Boynton. And the little version of the alphabet book by Seuss. (Big A little a what begins with A)...
YAY for barefoot books (what's in the forest dark and deep?  and Riding my tractor...)
YAY for the other books (a visual dictionary that is totally annoying, carrot sticks with the world "carrots" underneath.. I WILL be sharpie-ing the word "Sticks")

So here's the truth. I hear stories about little ones loving books, loving being read to, loving reading or playing with books and I hear my inside voice saying "it's ok, it's just not happening yet.... "  and I hear my own longing in that. I feel my own longing because of my own relationship with books.  Seriously, I cannot imagine what I would have done (what I would do) without them.

And when, as a parent person you feel like you are missing out, or like your kid is missing out, there is a panic as if somehow we are running out of time... when in fact, we are just having a different experience.

We watch SO MANY VIDEOS it is embarassing. Why? because it is her downtime. It is when she shifts into the gear I assumed she would shift into with reading.
She imagines, and recounts, and tells *those* stories.  Talks about *those* characters.
She is so intensely kinetic, I am not surprised, really, that her stillness comes only when there is action to *watch*.  I imagine, too, that this may change as she develops her own internal movie-making capabilities, you know, the ones that get triggered by, say, hearing stories.  Say, maybe stories that are being made up, or even, you know, READ ALOUD.

a moment of quiet

snow and fog

what kind of beauty

just now the sky lightened to tawny from indigo deep along the eastern edge, behind the pines.
the last stars fading
it is *so still* that I can see each pine needle.
i can see shadows of footprints in the snow

today I am starting with some moments of meditation
some intentional breathing

gathering myselves to get into a warm shower, comfy clothes, the car for a long drive to a client site...

this drive takes me past dark wooly work horses, some lovely lakes and streams and swamp lands,
up north and then west into mountains
it is always beautiful

there are some drives we dread, and others, like this one, that feel more like gifts.  On a morning like this, I wonder
will the water be open or iced over?
will the mountains be in clouds?
and of all the things there are to wonder, these questions are gifts too.
since it is not a question of whether there will be beauty,

it is only a question of what kinds of beauty I will be lucky enough to notice.