Life – SuperSonnek

The Worst.

For someone who works with WordPress, I’m an awful blogger.

I used to blog nearly every day before WordPress became my job, now I’m just “ugh blogging” like it’s some chore. I mean it really isn’t, but I think it’s more that I’m less anonymous than I was before so I’m less…open…about my life and everything around it.

Maybe it’s because I somehow think I have this image to protect. Which is riduculous because anyone that knows me already knows I’m a hot mess express. Or maybe I’m now a hot flash express…

Yep. The big M. Or more accurately, perimenopause – which is the bratty younger sister of menopause. The thing that has aggrivated me so much that I need to write about it.

And what I’ve discovered about perimenopause/menopause is that:

There’s few resources out there for women going through this.
There’s few doctors that actually know what to do about it.
There’s fuck all you can do about it.

What do you mean? Surely there’s medications or treatments that can help?

Of course there are, but what are you trying to treat? Here’s a graphic to help you picture the bullshit women of a certain age go through:

Note that this says Common Symptoms. COMMON.

But just to give you a fun insight into what I’M dealing with, the only ones I haven’t had either periodically or all the fucking time are 3, 6 (hysterectomy), 16, 20, 25, 30, 31, and 34. For you math-challenged folks, I have 26 of 34 “common” symptoms. With my luck, those other eight will pop up eventually.

How do you treat that? I went from zero medications to currently six to deal with these symptoms with varying levels of success. The best part about these symptoms is that they’re not constant nor are they consistent from person to person. So how do you treat that? Even with hormone treatment, a woman’s hormones can fluctuate by the hour – so how is a single dose of hormones going to be consistently effective?

Crazy, right? Welcome to the terrordome.

I try to give my husband half of an idea about what I’m going through, but it’s tough to explain to someone how fucking wild this all is. Like, when did this weird saggy neck thing pop up? Why can’t I remember shit anymore? Whose old hands are these? Why do I itch? WHY AM I SO HOT?!

In the past week, I literally raged at a piece of ice that fell on the floor. Screaming and stomping and I wanted to blow up the entire world. Because I dropped a piece of ice. Then an hour later I’m crying. Like full-on Katherine Hepburn sobs.

On other days I have to take a cold shower to just find some relief from the incessant hot feeling I’m suffering through. Other days I want to crawl up into a ball and die. Don’t get me started about what my allergies are doing now. They weren’t the greatest before but now they’re even worse!

Also, I love the advice on how to improve symptoms: cut down on caffeine, alcohol, and sugar. What’s the point of life after that?

I’m not even going to go into the digestive and other biological warfare that’s being waged in my body.

I’ve been finding myself to be increasingly stressed out and overwhelmed by everything lately. It got to the point where I exercised the option at work to go to a part-time schedule. I work four days a week for 80% of my full-time salary. I’m grateful to both my company and the good fortune that my husband and I have where we can weather a pay reduction, even for a short period of time. I’ve been on this reduced schedule for a month now and it’s been so helpful. I planned on staying part-time until the end of the year, but I’ll re-evaluate when the time gets closer. Knowing that I can be going through this for YEARS, I may need more time as I try to adjust and adapt to this new phase of life.

Yes, I’m trying to exercise and be more healthy, but my god it’s hard. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: if men had to go through this shit, there’d be more comprehensive health and mental care for this. 😦

I’m sure I’ll post more than once every two years now. Maybe.

Halfway

Well, my big “I’m gonna blog more!” plan for my sabbatical has fallen by the wayside because it’s been a month and a half between posts and I’m halfway done with my sabbatical. Whoops.

Looking at my rough list of “to-dos” from my last post, I have gotten some things done:

Major tree and shrub removal: This one happened the very first day of my sabbatical and I wrote about it in my last post.

Replacing the last two sets of windows on the house: They look amazing! Was a much smoother and clean process than I was anticipating – kudos to the Pella Window crew! If I were more organized, I would have taken before and after photos. Whoops.

Constructing a garden shed: Well, we have the shed, obviously, but it’s been sitting in it’s boxes in the garage since I bought it. The plan is to have the location prepped before the 4th of July week (dug out, leveled, sand and pea rock laid down). Why that week? My sister is planning on coming up for a few days that week and she’s willing to help me put it up (weather permitting, more on that below).

Painting: HAH. Absolutely zero of that happened. 😦

Having my mom stay with me for a week: I went down to the farm on Mother’s Day and brought Mom back to my house. We had a great time – went shopping, talked a lot, and she spent a ton of time looking out the back windows on the yard and pond watching all the wildlife. Also, I watched more local news and Wheel of Fortune than I have in decades. 😀

Landscaping: I’ve been working on clearing out all the landscaping rock in the garden bed next to the garage SINCE MOTHER’S DAY. Why is it taking so long? Because to get the rock out, the ground has to be dry – so about two days after the last rain is ideal. Problem is there’s been only two or three days where those conditions have happened – otherwise it rains every other day, or in the case of the past week, it’s rained EVERY DAY. ARGH!

Once the rock is out, there’s a stump we need to dig out, but the soil can be damp when we tackle that, so it’s not as crucial to be dry for two days in a row. Then I’ll plant my hydrangeas and get some new edging and mulch down then that project will be DONE.

Electrical work: Still haven’t done this one.

Designing Tim’s studio space: Well, we had the plan, but then he was focusing on his illustration and comics work full-time for a month or so and in the interests of saving money, we put this project on pause. Plus, he has a desk at a local studio with other comic artists, so he’s been spending a lot of time there working so having a better space here wasn’t a necessity.

Dialing in my nutrition/exercise plan: HAH.

I’ll clarify: HAHAHAHAH.

In all seriousness, I’ve been doing really well at CrossFit. I did my first (half) Murph on Memorial Day in the 90+ degree heat and did a lot better than I expected. I’ve also been setting some PRs on my weight lifting (bench press, front squat, back squat, etc.) and now that summer is here, we’re doing more running, which has been great even though I’m the slowest one there.

Nutrition-wise, I haven’t done anything. I’m in a funk and my motivation and drive to make meaningful changes is at zero right now. Which results in me wrapping myself in a warm blanket of comfort foods and making bad choices. It’s times like this where I wish I had that friend that I could talk to when things are low. But, after being rejected by the last friend I trusted with my troubles, I don’t bother anyone with my business anymore. Which is fine – all you can really rely on is yourself, right? And I know what some of you are thinking: “get a therapist” – I’d censor myself there too because I don’t feel comfortable talking to a virtual stranger about those things. I’m sure it works for other people, but in my experience it wouldn’t help. Maybe I should get one of those old-fashioned paper journals where I can sort out my thoughts. 🤔

ANYHOO.

Back to the nutrition thing: I’m going to try and make small, incremental changes to my eating and drinking habits and hope that this gradual change is the key to success. Especially since the “RAWR NO EXCUSES” method that I’ve tried in the past fails miserably.

Still haven’t made any plans for a weekend trip, so that part probably won’t happen – but who knows.

Now if it would just stop raining!

Change.

So many things have changed since my last post. Some things I still need to write about, but are too painful to tackle right now.

But one thing that has made itself apparent is that change is looming on the doorstep. Changes that are due to the new perspective that I have on all things in my life. Stuff that used to be a Big Deal™ now seem trivial. Things that weren’t on my radar are now first and foremost in my mind.

As such, I’ve renamed the site to reflect the new direction of this blog – where I’ll post more about my life and everything in it, rather than just the health/fitness focus that I started with.

Speaking of fitness, I did start CrossFit again. So there’s still going to be fitness-related nonsense, but I’ll be adding more personal stuff as well. More on the catalyst of all these changes to come shortly.