Flying Solo

A is away for the first time since we've moved. I forgot this feeling: going to bed alone at night, trying to conjure up motivation to make meals without another adult in the house, locking the doors at night (A's job) and feeling slightly nervous, sleeping all wacky because he isn't here with his strong opinions on bedtimes and rising. Its hard to be the one behind, but its especially hard at certain times of the month. Heh.

Remember this post? Yeah, that issue is still with me. But PMS is better, I have found with a few tricks that bring some sanity.

1. Trick 1: Track my cycle. Knowing why I feel totally hopeless helps. I know I'm on drugs which means that I know a lot of this is high reactivity and not actual massive dysfunction. 
2. Trick 2: Skullcap tea helps me tremendously. If I start to feel blue or ragey or kind of hopeless sobbish, I make myself a mug and then a thermos and just nurse it for a few days. This is the one I buy. 
3. Trick 3: The third thing that helps is wearing the tracker I talked about here. Monitoring my heart rate and breathing means that it can vibrate to remind me if I'm getting too worked up which is surprisingly effective. I listen when an objective device tells me that I'm getting too wound up and maybe I should take a break. 

So, anyhow...its that time and I'm trying my tricks and they help...but its still a dark week with a lot of low energy. I don't really know how to get to the place where I understand and appreciate my cycle and hormones. They are so disruptive to me. Frustrating.

Today was beautiful, the rain took a break and the boys were fooling around in the yard, fussing about on the edges of the vegetable garden "weeding things" to help it all along. The radishes are starting to show their second leaves and we can see little arugula and bachelor's buttons too. Its an amazing thought that we can have a garden now. I could have had one before now if I had jumped on things and just begun as soon as the rain came. Next year I will know a little bit about the rhythm of things here. Everything is so topsy-turvy in my mind. The rhododendron are blooming and the peach trees but the plum trees finished a while ago and so did the cherries. Everything seems like a muddle. Its beautiful and its so fresh and I'm utterly grateful in this alien place, but it is alien. 

I had a couple of really filling connections with girlfriends right before A left town and that is carrying me. I may be stressed out and tired but I am not alone and I am loved.  I am also glad that it is only 4 days. Bit sized business trips help. But why, why, why do the kids always get sick when he leaves? Stress? Heartbreak? Sheesh. So frustrating. 

We are going to meet him downstate in Bakersfield and then drive over and see the incredible, historic superbloom happening on the desert floor in Death Valley. Never been there, and stoked to see botanical history. Botanical history + My Man = Life Saved.

Living On Feminine Overdrive

Being on my period turns me into a weeping, sentimental maniac. I love that I feel deeply, I get the powerfully feminine vibrance of it all but after a while it feels like a drug trip that won't end. I have the hardest time seeing reality through the fog of induced extreme feeling and by the end of lots of days I just want to hide in a box. And maybe never wake up. Hormones suck.

I am normally a person with very little malaise, jaded entitlement and dull boredom. The world is a sparkling place and I love that I see each shell and bead and notice all the little things, appreciating it all. This time of the month though, I'm on such a ridiculous hormonal ride that its like being my usual perceptive self x 1,000,000,000.

 I was teary watching Ru start his first riding lesson. The sun was golden in the dust of the riding ring as he climbed the mounting block in his little velvet riding helmet and....there I was crying with joy over the beauty of it all. I did it discreetly. I think. I mean, I wasn't sobbing....just a few sniffs and a hurried wiping with the sleeves of my chambray shirt. The other boys didn't even notice, they were too busy swinging on the fence rails and trying to throw horse poop at each other. Dear little things. WHY are they so insane?!?! Here I am killing myself for them, being a wonderful mother and they continue to do things like attack each other and fight, no matter how kind I am to them. Why me???? Is all my life for nothing???? I have spent my life on this. This is it. Four ill-behaved boys and a house that is a giant mess....that's my whole life. My Lord. What have I done? I could have gone to mime school or married that rich Korean guy I met in Guatemala. Guatemala...there is a Guatemala. I mean, doesn't that just tear you to pieces??? What a beautiful world we live in. The world is incredible. I can't even handle it.

Its sort of like that.

Seriously.

That's slightly overkill...right?

What do you guys do to cope with over the top emotions? I breathe, try to realize that they aren't real, sometimes I laugh. I go outside. I eat. (more often than I'd like to admit although I am eating only healthy foods) I work. I control things that I can manage, like obsessively folding the napkins and scrubbing a spot out of the upholstery. I read because escape makes me happy. I space out. I hug my kids. I turn on music and dance. (although honestly this often inflames things emotionally, truth be told) and sometimes I just cry. I text my husband. I count the days on my calendar until I will feel normal again. I garden until my fingers hurt. I call friends. I know that I'll be sane again soon. Until then, I'm just over here sucking blood and howling at the moon, waiting for the spell to break.

Ru did have his first horseback riding lessons, which is a big dream he's been carrying for a while. Pretty amazing to watch him fearlessly up there on the big mare they paired him with, leaning into the work, learning to direct and hold his own.

The weather has been made to order....sun and gentle breezes, warm air and open window humidity level. Just exactly right. Grass is frothing at the edges of the highways now and the hens have started trying to take dust baths in their yard again. Yesterday we had the guinea pigs out in the lawn while we planted pansies in the urns at the front door and spread new mulch at their feet.

I am eating clean and exercising, sometimes with A and sometimes by myself, but consistently no matter who comes along for the ride. I have learned that I love tricep dips and hate wall sits and that I can do real push-ups. My current record is 13 in a row! I also found out that one of the water bottles that I own already has ounce marks on the side, as if it was just waiting for me to start watching my fluid intake and actually use it to try to get hydrated. Lemon water is my new best friend.

I think I'm almost to the point where I can actually say I've taught two children to read. One more library card awaits for our family. Teaching small people to do things that have nothing at all to do with normal human function is miraculous. I feel like I have taught someone to climb walls or revive babies from comas. So beautiful to see the words on the page slide from jumbled symbols to smooth, linked codes that untangle steadily and watch the little voice managing it all perk up with expression and cadence. Life is beautiful. Okay...time to go to bed. I'm tearing up again.