A Quiet Storm

How did I do yesterday? I will write that down, but first:

Wow...my hubby was coughing last night, so he went to another room to sleep, and I slept through the night. That has not happened in years. I have been EXHAUSTED to distraction, between the hormone fluxuations of menopause and my brain trying to sort through the details of our challenging lives...(which may be a different blog someday, maybe even a book...but I will allude to it here once in a while.)

I am a light sleeper. Mainly at night. I sleep deeply at 7 AM. I know...it makes for a very interesting life.

Right now I am here trying to figure out how I worked three days a week, went to school fulltime, kept house, took care of a sick kid, and was a wife, for several years without collapsing, in middle age! Well I am collapsing NOW. But not TODAY, because I actually slept more than 5 hours, without waking up and staying up for an hour or more, as is my custom, night after night.

It really is a wonder I function at all. Or do I? The last few months have been a blurr, marked by a couple of events which punctuated my need for help.

First there was The Home Experience, a wonderful conference at church. When we went shopping and out to eat with the speaker, Devi Titus, I became aware AGAIN, that I am doing everything wrong. I have quit excercising because I am too tired, I don't eat right because, well, because my attempts at controlling the food that comes into our house have failed, and therefore I am way overweight, and shopping is no fun.

But I also became aware of how much I do love hospitality and entertaining, and how I have not had the energy nor the extra money to do it. And I became aware that I may never get a job as long as I am fat. Let's face it, overweight people are not Company Insurance-friendly, not to mention the attractiveness factor that should be a given in the Beauty Industry. Fat is just not hip, and to be a Cosmetologist, one really needs to be hip.

I will mention here that my degree is in Organizational Leadership and Theology. What I really want to do is be a Ministries Coordinator. But I have discovered my "industry" is very male oriented, when it comes to hiring. Unless I want to work at a Universalist Church, head up a Children's Ministry, or a Hispanic Ministry, I am not in the running. My friends will know exactly what my response to those options would be.

In the meantime I do Women's Ministry at church, a volunteer position I LOVE. I love our church women. We mother each other.

So the second event which punctuated my need for help was earlier this month. We had a Women's Brunch at church during which I was the MC. During which time I bled profusely. For the third time, I had started the bio-identical hormones my Gyno had given me. For the third time they made me have unbelieveable blood loss. I wonder if anyone could tell I was shaking. I wore a brightly colored skirt hoping to mask the blood. It did not work...

Today, I go to a new Gyno to try to get this figured out. (my other Gyno, who had suggested I have a hysterectomy, quit gyno-ing to do anti-aging research) The first time I saw this new one she told me she would not recommend hormones at all, OR a hysterectomy, unless I have abnormal cells in my uterus, which she will look for today.

The third event which nailed it for me, and convinced me to DO SOMETHING was this past weekend. I was surrounded by my beautiful female cousins who have managed to keep some semblance of their former young figures. I was actually relieved my God-Mother was not there. She gets very angry at me (in a good way) when I don't look trim and lovely. Trim and lovely are values our Cuban culture holds dear, along with friendly, affectionate, and talkative. Oh they still love you if you are fat, but they want you to 'get rid of it,' for all the great reasons you should!

SO MY QUEST: to get my uterus and hormones under control as much as is possible at this stage of life, to get rid of most or all of the excess weight, which I know will be difficult at this stage of life, and to make myself more employable and/or nail down some type of interesting career...

As to how I did yesterday, well: I did some writing, (did I mention I love to write and am working on a book?) I ate reasonably healthy stuff in small quantities, BUT I was unable to say "no" to a time consuming request to which I should probably have said "no." And I was too tired to excersise. But I did take by wonderful Nano Vitamins!

My focus HAS to be my health and weight loss this month. I MUST make time to excersise every day. The biggest obstacle to my excersising is that I am usually so tired. But I know that if I start small, I will actually have more energy, and it may actually HELP regulate my hormones a little and help me sleep better...and all those other great things excersise does...