The Change

And for once I'm not talking about the changing brain of my teenage son, I'm talking about my change.

While I was at an office function on Friday, conversation with friends inevitably turned to menopause and peri-menopause and our personal experiences. My friend said she's been feeling sad and have I been? I said no, not really - I haven't notice mood changes...but then thought yes I have! And it is sadness, and it's like it's blowing into me, filling me up. And it's different from the hormonal mood swings brought on by PMS because I don't feel the hormonal anxiety encouraging certain moods. Just this weight of sadness.

And I realized it's one of the major reasons I haven't been working with on this blog or feeling particularly creative (a huge light bulb moment for me).

She said her friend is being hit really hard and she wants to help but doesn't know how so spoke to her doctor and had a therapist recommended.

Now having been ravaged by the black dogs of depression in my teens and early 20s, I know, for me, this is different from that kind of dehabiliting sadness and I definitely don't need medication to help me through this time.

But I just wanted to put it out to you if you ever want to contribute your own personal story or ask me anything about my experience, please do!

Now on to a quick story about 9.

9 was hit in the head with a tennis ball yesterday (no NOT BY ME this time) and decided by last night that it could have killed him and he is offended that I'm not taking him seriously. After all, it was very close to his temple. Getting hit in the temple means certain death. He feels that if he has even the slightest of headaches in the morning, he will need to stay home.

Being completely unsympathetic I had to tell him that he is going to school, even though he did bravely face death, and if I get even one call from the school I will tell them that there is no way he is being sent home and he is to return to his class. And I will give him only fruit for his birthday.

And, AND, I was hit in the face by a rock, just below my eye, when I was his age and my mother had my grandfather determine whether I needed a trip to the hospital and once he said NO, she went back to ignoring me. And I could have lost an eye! But that's just how it was in the 1970s and you grew up in a large family. You were ignored and so you sucked it up.

He's not happy with me.

Plus according to 9, he faced death, I would merely have been blinded in one eye - one would consider that only an inconvenience.