the ordinary life of a {closet} loner

This is what I love doing. I am sitting alone at one end of a dining room table that can easily sit 10-12 people. A cup of tea to my right and the Tar Beach Lullabies playlist from Songza playing on my iPad to my left and my sleeping pup at my feet (keeping them warm). The lights are mostly off and I am writing by the glow of my laptop and the still light dusk of a Northern Alberta spring night.

Today, I took my children to a birthday party at one of those jumpy castle play place establishments that are all the rage these days. I knew most of the parents and kids at the party and while it was nice to visit with everyone, I felt this strange urge to escape from this social situation. I wanted to hightail it out of there and run off for the two hours of the party, or at least plunk myself down in a corner and read a book, or pull out my iPad and get lost in the long list of Favourited links from my Twitter stream. I did manage to escape for about 45 minutes and ran a few errands (ie, went to Anthropologie and bought a new top. Shopping, also something that I love to do by myself.)

I know this is going to sound a bit crazy to those of you who know me, but I think I am a bit of a loner.

I sometimes dream of being that woman who hosts perfect big dinner parties or the one who has that group of Ya-Ya Sisterhood friends that meet on a regular basis and tell each other everything and know all of each others secrets - the good, the bad and the ugly. I dream of going on holidays with another family (or families) that we are so close to, our kids are more like brothers and sisters than friends. I think that these are the things that I should be dreaming about.

I just don't know if I am that person.

In one week, we will have been in our Natural Urban Home for exactly one year and we have yet to have an official house warming party. To be perfectly honest, I have only had a handful of friends over and never all at once. I am not ashamed of my house at all, it's just the opposite. I love this place so much and we worked so hard to make it 100% us and ours, that sometimes it feels strange to have other people here. And it's not just me, my husband has always been one to consider his home his sanctuary from the world and on any given day, my kids are usually 70/30 when it comes to going home to play or going out. This is our centre, our starting point and our end every day and walking through our door often feels like exhaling after having held one's breath for a long time.

Now, I know what you are all thinking, "Natasha, you are not a loner. We've seen you work a room! Your the most social of the social butterflies!" I won't deny that I feed off of the energy in a room and yes, I do like to be social, but at most events that I attend I am just that, a butterfly, flitting from one conversation to another, stopping in for a sip of the nectar from this group and then flying off to the next.  I know why I seem like the social, extroverted one. I know the reason behind my flitting about and social insect behaviours.

I fear depth.

I fear that if I spend too much time with people, that they will see deeper into the real me and then not really want to be around me. And I can feel it. I can physically feel the wall that I put up when things get serious. It's both a defence mechanism and a protective shield. I am defending myself from the inside out and protecting myself from any {perceived} attack from afar. If she could, my therapist would tell you that this all goes back to my very early childhood and my feelings of never being good enough, of always being an outsider, of always dealing better with other people's feelings and problems than facing my own. This all makes me think that perhaps then my home, my concrete walled home, and the sense of relief I feel when I walk through it's doors, is a physical manifestation of this fear.

Commander Chris Hadfield of the Iternational Space Station, tweeted this photo and caption today.

 

That is how I feel some days, like mostly liquid rock covered by a thin crust. For the most part I can control the hot spots and keep everyone {including myself} safe and sound on the surface. If anyone tries to crack that surface though, my biggest fear it that it is gonna get really ugly. Everyone will see the messy, not so pretty parts of me, and will head off running in the other direction. I know that this is not likely true of most people and that I should give folks more credit, but hey, it's fear! It messes with our minds!

I also saw this tweet from Maria at @boredmommy earlier tonight. It is what sparked this rambling train of thought and post.

I thought about this and then came to the realization that I wouldn't change anything. I have a really wonderful life. One that I am incredibly grateful for. I don't want to go back to the career that I had pre-children, it just wouldn't work for our family and I don't foresee myself getting back into the 9-5 workforce anytime soon. I made a choice to be the at-home parent for my children, not just for when they were babies and in the safety of my arms, but for when they are leaving them and beginning to navigate the world beyond the walls of our home. This is when I think they are going to need me the most. I believe that part of my fear in the aforementioned social situations is that someone is going to ask me the dreaded "What do you DO?" question. I am afraid that I won't have an answer that is good enough for them. That me being a stay at home mom and yes, a sometimes blogger/writer too, will not be interesting or extraordinary enough for them.

As it happens when I am tackling issues of fear and vulnerability, I defer to the expert on these things, the wonderful Brene Brown. Please watch this 2010 TEDx talk she gave. At 6:34 she kind of blows my mind (as she has a tendency to do to a lot of people I am sure) and takes ALL THE WORDS FROM MY HEAD and puts them up on her screen!

[youtube]http://youtu.be/_UoMXF73j0c[/youtube]

I am an ordinary woman, living an ordinary life, loving my ordinary husband and raising my ordinary kids. And I like to write alone, at the end of my huge table, in my big beautiful sanctuary of a home.

And I am trying not to be afraid of scarcity anymore.

Maybe one day you can come over for coffee and we can talk about ordinary things together.

natasha~

#40SilverLinings: Happy Easter!

I did not post one every day, but having the thought of my #40silverlinings posts in my head, made me focus more on the good things going on in my life. It was a good exercise in positive thinking, in seeing the happy moments in days that can sometimes seem overwhelming. So here you have my last list to wrap up all 40 of my silver linings for Lent.

31. A hot bath after a long day, a real book (I don't do e-readers) and a husband who brings me a glass of wine after I am all settled in the tub!

32. The "Oh My Darling" twisted London fog tea latte from my neighbourhood cafe. Darjeeling tea, almond milk and coconut flavouring. It just makes everything better, I swear.

33. Date night. The best bowl of Pho in the city followed by chilling at what my husband is calling his new favourite cafe. {So much so, that he wants to use it as the blueprint for our basement development!}

34. Sprinter. It's what I am calling this ridiculous Spring/Winter season in Edmonton. It means rubber boots and mitts and sometimes a toque and sometimes just a fleece vest and FINALLY being able to have some outdoor play time!

35. Picking up my puppy after day surgery at the vet. She hasn't wanted that much cuddling in a long time and I didn't realize how much I missed it too.

36. That moment when every piece of laundry is clean, folded and put away. I am dead serious, this is total happy dance time around here!

37. Napping with my baby nephew. {Even though he cried for 20 minutes before actually falling asleep.}

38. Women all over the world (and very close to me) standing up for themselves, breaking the cycles in their  lives and knowing that they are worthy of happiness. XO.

39. The Toca Tailor stylings and designs of my four year old daughter!

40. A long weekend surrounded by the family that I love. A movie date with the little cousins, girls night out with my sisters {in-law} and making a special Easter dinner for my mom, my sister and her family.

I am truly blessed in this life. Maybe that is the true lesson of Lent. Perhaps it is not so much about sacrifice and giving something up ,as it is looking closely and really appreciating all that we have. All the little things we likely take for granted in our day to day lives can add up to a whole lot of silver linings and happy moments. It is up to us to choose to see them, to live in those moments, to take a deep breath and thank whomever or whatever you believe in for that special moment in time.

And then it is up to us to take that attitude of grace and gratitude and spread it around...

...it's the best kind of infection you can pass on to anyone.

Love and light to you all,

natasha~

When the landscape changes, so must we

I wasn't going to read it. There has been so much in the news and on blogs and all over the internets about the Steubenville rape case that I was just not going to read another article that would A) raise my blood pressure to toxic levels again or B) make me physically sick to my stomach. Watching CNN's Candy Crowley and Poppy Harlow report on the verdict in this case nearly did me in!

A few days ago, I reacted to a tweet by a local news anchor who had just read Barbara Amiel's Maclean's article, the one I was NOT going to read. I had already seen excerpts from it in a few posts earlier this week and I really did not want to read more of it and get upset again.

But I had to. I had to give context to the tweet I reacted to and a solid reason for my reaction. So I read the article, and as predicted, my blood pressure rose to earth's core erupting levels and as expected, I immediately felt the bile rushing up from the pit of my stomach.

There has been much knee-jerk reaction to Ms. Amiel's article (as witnessed by a quick perusal of the heavily populated comment section) and my tweet was no exception. Upon further reading I decided that instead of the visceral gut reaction that came from reading her article, I needed to take some deep breaths and respond to it more succinctly.

I want to address each of the incidents that Ms. Amiel discusses in her article and why her opinion (ie, why are we making such a big deal out of them?) is an outdated one, rank with flagrant patriarchy and one has no place in our world today. A world that I want to leave better, more transparent, and more RESPECTFUL of all human beings for my own children to grow up in and feel safe in. So here I go, after much thought and consideration, my response to Barbara Amiel's op-ed piece on our "anything goes sexual society."

....................

1. The Steubenville Rape Case.

Ms. Amiel writes about the case and reminisces about her U of T campus days:

"This is a party ending that reminds me of my days living in Whitney Hall residence at the University of Toronto in the early ’60s, kitty-corner to the Zetes fraternity house, which specialized in drunken binges and the noisy smashing of bottles all weekend long. The girls wore more clothes, flip flops had not been popularized and, crucially, no such thing as cellphones and social media existed. But the end result looked much the same from my third-floor window." (Emphasis mine.)

"The end result looked much the same..." and it very likely was the same. A young college girl, excited that the popular frat house boys on campus had invited her to their party. Maybe she drank too much, maybe was taken into a room or a car or behind a shed and quite possibly she was sexually assaulted to some degree. The problem as I see it here, is that in the 1960's, the legal definition of rape and the very likely the cultural perception of rape was very different that it is today. And it had very little to do with how much or how little clothes the girl was wearing or how much "boys will be boys".

We don't live in the 1960's anymore. "Good girls" who watch from their dorm windows, "bad girls" who get too drunk at frat parties, it doesn't matter who you are, consent is consent and too drunk to give it means NO. The "girls should know better" attitude is plain and ugly victim-blaming and "boys being boys" statement is indicative of a much larger problem in our society.

Ms. Amiel's says that"In a normal society, the girl’s mother would have locked her up for a week and all boys present would have been suspended from school and their beloved football team." This statement is so misguided and indicative of the pervasiveness of rape-culture in our world as to make one feel hopeless and/or want to slam their heads onto their desks, present company included.WHAT kind of normal society is she talking about? One where boys can drag around a helpless girl (whether or not she is the master of that helplessness), finger her repeatedly (and YES, that is RAPE), urinate on her helpless body, laugh about it with their buddies who clearly know WHAT RAPE IS (that video is 12:29 minutes that are now burned into my memory forever) and then continue to enjoy their celebrity football star status with a mere slap on the wrist? One where the girl, THE VICTIM OF THIS CRIME, should be locked up for a week? What for? To learn her lesson? So her mother can school her on how to be a "good girl" from now on? Please Ms. Amiel, wake up and smell the 21st Century. The Internet is forever, someone will videotape you doing stupid, (criminal) shit and women and girls of all ages are not going to let the popular boys get away with the same sexual shenanigans of the past. So yes, the landscape has changed here and no longer are we sweeping high school or college frat party antics gone awry under the carpet of "Shush now, you don't want to ruin your reputation and marriageability now do you?".

A young girl was raped, her rapists were caught, tried and are being punished for their crime. Would anyone have done or wanted anything less had Jane Doe been their daughter? I think not.

2. Toronto Mayor Tom Ford's alleged inappropriate sexual comments to Sarah Thomson.

I am pretty certain that we have all been in this situation at some point in our adult lives. A corporate function, an open bar, spouses not in attendance and everyone having a good time. Someone says something inappropriate, a butt gets grabbed, a comment gets made that makes someone uncomfortable, and for the most part, usually there is some awkward laughing-off of the comment or incident or a more sober person takes the offender or offended away from the situation for a cup of coffee and/or an escort to their hotel room.

This time though, Sarah Thomson did not laugh it off. She tweeted about it. Which in our day and age (again, the 21st Century) is a very commonplace thing to do. In hindsight, should she have taken Mayor Ford aside and said, "Hey, I know you've had a bit to drink, but what you just said and did made me feel very uncomfortable."? Maybe. Would it have made a difference? We will never know.

What I find appalling about Ms. Amiel's commentary about this incident is her opinion of sexual harrasment as a whole. A term she says was invented in the 1970s and one "that ought to have been strangled at birth." WHAT? Because women in the workplace or at corporate  or political functions should be subjected to inappropriate touching, suggestive comments, drunk dudes just "being one of the guys" again? No thanks, I choose to thank my lucky stars for Catherine MacKinnon and what she did for the women's movement in "inventing" the words to describe and make illegal this kind of behaviour, mainly towards women.

I remember distinctly a point in my career when I thought I was being groomed for a management role. I was at a regional sales meeting at a gorgeous hotel in the mountains and I was being invited to sit at upper management tables, to meet with the marketing teams from head office and was feeling really good about myself and my future within this company. On the night of our big wrap-up celebration, I was invited to one of my managers hotel suites for some pre-party drinks, with what I assumed was a group of other sales reps. What I walked into was something completely different. I entered a room of about 5-7 men, all in managerial positions (ie, above my pay-grade), all of whom had been drinking already, and who where taking turns getting photos taken with a full sized blow-up sex doll. I was the only woman in the room. I think that a few of them saw how inappropriate this was, but most just continued to laugh it off as I was offered a drink and a photo-op. I declined both and left the room. A few hours later once the outdoor tent celebration was in full sling, I headed out to the porta-potties. I was followed, and once in the tiny pee booth, two people started shaking and trying to tip the unit. I pulled up my pants as quickly as I could and burst out of the door screaming a stream of expletives that I thought were aimed at fellow (drunk) team members. What I was not prepared for was to see that it was in fact my Regional Sales Manager and the Regional Accounts Manager, both of whom where in that suite earlier in the evening, who were the perpetrators. Again, I was angry and offended and just walked it off. In the sober light of the morning, I was taken aside by my immediate manager and told NOT TO SAY A WORD TO ANYONE about what had happened the night before.

Was I sexually harassed by these men? I think so. It wasn't a typical ass grab and sexual innuendo kind of harrassement that we associate with an episode of Mad Men (or perhaps a political event in Toronto), but I do believe that this kind of behaviour created an intimidating, hostile and offensive work environment for me. I was not sad, nor surprised, to see most of this management team leave the company within the year.

I wish I could go back to that time, be as strong as I am now and have had the courage to say, GUYS, this is NOT OK! I know that they would have probably brushed it off or accused me of not having a sense of humour and not being capable of taking a joke, but I also wonder how many other women felt the same way that I did and no one EVER said anything. Maybe they too were told to keep their mouths shut - with the implied "or else" hanging at the end of that statement.

Ms Amiel says that "The same action that is generally welcome from a person you like is sexual harassment from one you don’t." And she is absolutely correct in this. The key word in the legal definition of sexual harassment is UNWELCOME. If you are a consenting participant in a conversation of a sexual nature, regardless of how offensive or objectionable it is, that is not sexual harassment. I do believe that Ms. Amiel's comments make it very clear what era she grew up in and spent a good part of her career in, another 'Good Ol' Boys' club, where you just accepted that slap on the ass and smiled pretty. Once again, 'tis the dawn of a new era, and if we are all to lean-in a little more these days, we must also lean-ON this kind of behaviour in workplaces and professional settings so as to make them welcoming for all.

3. Professor Tom Flanagan's remarks that private viewing of child pornography is an issue of personal liberty and "doesn't really hurt anyone".

{Deep breath} This is a tough topic for me. I am a mother of two beautiful young children; I was sexually assaulted by both a trusted neighbour and a favourite teacher when I was a child; and without getting into details that would hurt people that I love, the topic of child pornography is a sensitive one for me.

It is very hard to look at this issue from a censorship and personal liberty perspective when the words that proceed those are CHILD and PORNOGRAPHY. The point being made by Ms. Amiel and Mr. Flanagan, is that the viewers of child pornography are not hurting anyone. They are simply viewing "squalid pictures" on their internet connections in the privacy of their own homes.

No, no they are not. These child pornography voyeurs are the end user of a supply and demand system much like any other. The pictures they are looking at are pictures and videos of children, some of them extremely young children, being abused, being sexualized, being used for their tiny little bodies. They are paying for these pictures, they are funding an industry that relies on the exploitation and abuse of our youngest citizens all for the simple "private viewing" of others.  I don't think so.

Ms Amiel says that "You cannot end a disease by arresting the infected." and she may be right. But I know a bit about infectious diseases and I know that the earlier an infection is caught and treated, the less likely it is going to invade further and cause even more damage to the system. How slippery a slope is it to go from viewing child pornography, to taking pictures of kids yourself, to luring them via the internet, to straight up sexual abuse and pedophilia? I don't know that this is a straight line or a natural progression of this particular disease, but I do know that I don't want to wait around and let the infected ride out their contamination to find out.

Is harsher sentencing for possession of child pornography the cure here? Is it more counselling and some kind of rehabilitation? Again, I don't know. Just don't go telling me that looking at a few pictures of naked kids, forced to do grown-up things they have no understanding of, for the pleasure of GROWN UPS on the Internet doesn't hurt anyone. What if that was a picture or video of your kidnapped or abused or lured child that your friendly neighbour was getting off to every night in the privacy of his own home? How far would your defence of the sanctity of one's civil liberties extend to then?

....................

I propose to Ms. Amiel that it is not that our sexual landscape is riddled with landmines, it is that our sexual landscape has changed. The tectonic plates have shifted us out of the Pangaea (or Patriarchy) that was, where women and children were seen as possessions and things, into the Present Day world we live in today. A world where everyone has a voice, everyone has a right to be respected and have their bodies respected as well. No, we have not created an anything-goes sexual society. We have just stopped sweeping all the nasties under the rug, turning a blind eye to it all and we have EVOLVED as a species.

Or at least some of us have.

natasha~

Image source: Kevin M. Gill on Flickr

Choosing a better hill

There is no shortage of divisive topics in our world these days. Gun control, abortion, gay rights, how you feed your baby, team Jacob vs. team Edward... just to name a few. But the one that seems to get no less than at least a half a dozen mentions a day on my twitter feed alone, and that is nothing when you look at the plethora of dedicated Facebook, reddit and tumblr sites, is none other than the Great Leggings Debate!  Now for the record, and in the interest of full disclosure, I have been firmly entrenched in the "leggings are NOT pants" camp for quite some time. I did not wear leggings for anything other than the gym or yoga, I held off for a long time on buying any kind of jean that resembled a legging or hugged too tight (or was officially called a "jegging") and even though I sometimes peruse sites like Blackmilk to see the latest in printed styles, I have always resisted the urge to buy. I have gotten into heated discussions with friends about the legging. I have been accused of policing others choices because of my stance on leggings. And yes, I have even sent my 4-year old daughter back to her room to add a skirt or a longer top or dress to her outfit because of my strict leggings rules.

In my world, leggings ARE NOT PANTS.

A week ago I read a post from Amanda Hess over at Slate's XX Factor and by golly, I think this woman is on to something.  For one thing, she fully agrees with me that leggings are not pants.

Pants are great if you’re a woman with the perfectly-calibrated corporate-sanctioned ratio of waist to ass to leg. What are you, a ringer for the jeans industry? It’s time to stop squeezing our lower bodies into constrictive denim prisons and instead envelope them in a forgiving cotton-spandex jersey. Never again will we be forced to choose between visible ass-crack and bulging muffin top.

She goes on to list some very compelling reasons why leggings are in fact far superior to pants. They are sturdy, footless (think toe seams on tights), don't bind us with control tops and are as she puts it "the sartorial equivalent of a warm bath."  There was nothing in her post that I could argue with and much that I laughed out loud to.

Last Sunday as my daughter and I spent the day at the mall, I stopped into one of my favourite new stores, LOLE. It is an active wear clothing store that is bright and beautiful and it makes me happy every time I walk through it. They happened to be having a 30% off sale and without hesitation I grabbed these leggings, headed to the till and bought them on the spot. I didn't even try them on. I just knew. I knew they were the ones.

I went home and put them on immediately. And I fell in love, or as Amanda so aptly puts it, into a warm leg bath. She was so right! Leggings really are superior to pants. Pants do nothing but make you focus on your bodies short comings. If they are not too tight in one area, they are too low in another. How often do you hear of a woman's incessant search for the perfect pair of jeans! I know I have yet to find them. But these leggings, with their lycra goodness, are sheer perfection!

My rules do still apply to them. I will not wear them without covering up my bum (and front) and the preferable footwear choice is still a boot. These are my rules folks, if you choose to adopt them as your own, be my guest. If not, I am not going to judge. Your body, your clothing choices, your life. If this is how you feel comfortable, who am I to be the one to tell you otherwise. Perhaps it is my age (or the wisdom of my years), but I appreciate comfort a lot more these days. I also have a thing for knee high socks and boots right now and the legging really works with this look.

So YES! I am throwing up the proverbial white flag, surrendering myself to the spandex-y goodness and donning my leggings with comfort and yes, some pride too!

And to be perfectly honest, fighting about what someone chooses to put on their legs is not the hill I want to die on.

What actions do you choose when confronted with those who don't see things as you do? Do you fight? Do you argue? Do you negotiate? Do you surrender? Let me tell you something right now. If you live more than a few days you will find conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional. You don’t have to fight about everything. Even the Marines have a saying, "Choose the hill you want to die on." If you must fight about something, if there must be that thing that will make you raise your voice, grind your teeth and pound your fist on a desk, let it be something that has to do with respect, dignity and integrity; or someone's attempt to deny another of one or all three of those things.

 ~ Demitri C. Kornegay

My legs, my leggings, my pride socks!!

Peace out!

natasha~

#40silverlinings: Catching up on a weeks worth!

OK, fine, almost two weeks.

#22. A massage. A beautiful hour and a half all to me, about me and for me! And I booked another one too!!

#23. My slow cooker. Coming home to a meal that is cooked and ready to eat is the BEST THING EVER. Now if only I could get more organized and on this for more days in the week.

#24. 2.5 pounds. That is how much weight I have lost in the last couple of weeks. It's not a lot, but slow and steady is going to win this race.

#25. SCHMUTZIE!! And Palinode too! A night out in real life with two of my favourite internet folks. They is good people yo!

#26. My new front teeth. I am the only one who really notices them, but I feel damn sexy with these new chompers! {And the ability to eat apples again!}

#27. Jen Banks and her obsessive need to see more seasons of Sons of Anarchy. And Netflix. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

#28. My kid doing a Foghorn Leghorn impression mid conversation with himself that almost made me fall off the bed laughing. Teletoon Retro for the win!

#29. And this. An artistic breakthrough for my little dinosaur aficionado. I am one proud mama! In case you are wondering... THIS is a Spinosaurus, biggest mofo of the Cretaceous period!

Here's to tomorrows silver lining, whatever it may be!

natasha~

Sharing

In an effort to become a more organized and cohesive family unit, my husband and I have started sharing our iCalendars. We now know exactly where we are at all times, what activities the kids have, when any and all appointments are, and, as of last night, when my menstrual cycle starts. Yes. You read that right. My menstrual cycle is now in my husbands calendar and "in the Cloud".

The past few weeks have been particularly tough for me and I honestly couldn't figure out why. I have been extremely moody, irritable and VERY emotionally volatile. I mean, I almost burst into tears at soccer registration because C has to play on the Under-8 team and not the Under -6 team with all his school friends. That incident alone should have clued me in to what was going on.

But no, I just kept thinking I was staring at the beginning of my mid-life crisis and was slowly losing my mind. My poor husband even told me last week that he was afraid to say anything to me for fear of my response or interpretation of his {innocent} words. My kids noticed too and one day my 4 year old said to me that she thought I needed a nap because I was so grumpy. :(

In the past 24 hours, I started putting two and two together thanks to the like-clockwork arrival of dear Aunt Flo.

Have you seen that new Poise commercial? The one with various women of my {ahem} age range, talking about "the change"? Here it is for those of you who haven't.

The women in the commercial talk about having a "second talk". About how your body is changing yet again and that we should really be having another open and honest chat about it. I for one, am all for this. I don't know if I am truly going through any kind of change at the moment, but I am probably at the beginning of it and SOMETHING is going on.

Hormone changes, body changes, hair growing in new places (just ask Tanis about that one!).  These things happen and no one really talks about it! It's not like our moms are sitting us down with a nice cup of tea and some mini muffins and saying to us, "Now dear, let me tell you why you are going to need a really big tub of lube these days."

And the PMS!! Oh dear GAWD! I have never been one to experience really bad PMS. I was on the pill for a good portion of my {ahem} teen and adult life and then I had babies. I refuse to go back on any kind of hormonal birth control after my IUD experience and so here I am. Forty-one years old and expereincing real PMS for the first time in my life. Or as I have just found out, what could very well be PERImenopause. 

You didn't know about that pre-phase of the change now did you?  SEE, we really do need to have that second talk!!

Perimenopause is the phase that happens 1-5 years BEFORE actual menopause. And it can wreak havoc on all kinds of hormones; your estrogen levels, stress hormones, insulin hormones... ALL of them!

This stage of life is difficult to diagnose because most symptoms of perimenopause match up with those of PMS, or even just a bad day: Anger, anxiety, backache, bloating, mood swings, fuzzy thinking, loss of sexual desire, and irritability are a few examples. Women who don’t know they’re going through perimenopause may experience these symptoms for years and years without even considering that dropping hormone levels may be to blame. In the meantime, they may simply feel like there’s “something wrong” with them or that they’re going crazy. They may attribute their extra stress and irritability to the increasing pressures of advancing in their career or raising growing children.

I read the above paragraph and a light bulb went off in my head. OMG!! This is me! (See last post, where I reiterate the  "what is wrong with me, I think I am going crazy" thoughts as stated above!)

So there you have it folks.

My name is Natasha and I am perimenopausal!

And in an effort to track this, keep an eye out for the mood swings, fuzzy thinking and irritability and to ensure the continued functioning of my family and my marriage, my husband now has this in his calendar for next month. He says he is good with it, because now he knows exactly when he is more likely to get some action! I love how he sees the silver lining in this (even if AF is arriving on Date Night and will be the awkward third wheel).

Feeling better, yet also, very old,

natasha~

keep calm and carry on

I started writing something last night and three hours in my husband had to stop me because I had started weeping. It was the kind of crying where the tears are like a leaking faucet and they just don't stop. It wasn't pretty. I am not sure what triggered this kind of response from me. Perhaps it was the culmination of a long and trying week. Maybe it was PMS. Might have been the 2, 4, 6, shot I don't know, but look at the mess I am in.... {Sorry, couldn't help myself.}

In the end, I kept the post. It's one for the private vault. Just for me, to read again when I need that kind of purge. The problem is that all day I have been analyzing my feelings about it and keep coming back to this part.

I have moments lately where I look at myself and I wonder if I really do know myself. Do I know what my purpose in life is and am I living that fully? How exactly am I making my mark?

A lot of questions I know. Yes, I am a mother and I am making my mark by moulding the minds of these two little people in my care, and that is the single greatest (and scariest) responsibility and privilege in my life. Perhaps it is because I am not as young as I used to be and that feeling of “Go forth and DO something BIG and meaningful” seems to be slipping away as the years go by. Maybe this is a normal kind of thing that happens to people when our own parents die. We see their lives, their regrets, the things that they wish they had done differently and wonder if we too will be on our death beds, asking for forgiveness, wishing we had done more, trying to find peace, hoping it was all enough.

For some crazy reason, lately I feel like I am not doing that something big and meaningful that I am supposed to be doing. There is a floundering feeling floating around me and it really, really sucks. I feel like it is keeping me from being me, and also keeping me away from friends and those who care about me because I can't handle the simple questions of how I am and what I am doing now.

Tonight I read this post from Katherine Stone and her words struck me deeply.

Thinking you need to be a hero or change the world or make great strides or save lives or revolutionize things sounds impossible. Those things seem like things only special people, only heroes can do. You’re not fearless like that! To be fierce, though, sometimes all you have to do is limp across.

I think with this new space of mine, I put some rather high expectations on myself and I am afraid that I am disappointing not only you, my readers, but also myself. I am not though, am I? I forgot for a few minutes who I am and who I write for. I don't write posts for brands or sponsors or reviews of this or that. I don't write controversial posts just for pageviews (trust me on that one). I write for me. I write for connection with you. I write as a way to do that meaningful something or other.

This space is a work in progress. As am I. And as such, I am giving myself a break. No, not from writing. From expecting to write huge feminist manifestos and diatribes about how far we have come and how much farther we still have to go. I am giving myself a break from feeling like I have to somehow be a hero and save the world from itself.

So like the story in Katherine's post, I am going to limp my way forward into this and along the way, I know that my purpose, my raison d'etre will reveal itself.

I think I just need to take a few breaths and calm the f^*k down a bit first.

{BIG deep breath}

natasha~

I love my twitter stream....

Because I find hashtags like #MAKERSchat, that take me to the most inspiring, frustrating, idealistic, political and personal piece of television I have ever seen! I just spent the last 151 minutes watching Makers: Women who make America, and I highly recommend you watch it too. Download the video from iTunes, catch it again on PBS, find a friend who saved it on her PVR.

Just watch it.

It is our story, the story of women, the story that is not over...

[youtube]http://youtu.be/OOBo4hnk2g0[/youtube]

That my dears, is my silver lining for today (#16).

Good night my sisters!

Natasha~