Archives for category: Menopause
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Not Exactly What I Call ‘Sleep’

November 11, 2014 //
2

I didn’t sleep well last night. Actually, I didn’t sleep last night. I went to bed in the evening feeling fully prepared and ready to sleep. I even fell asleep with little effort. For about 2 hours. Then I woke, and dozed, and woke again. I got up around 12:41 am and prowled the house quietly. Then back to bed; there were no monsters. I woke again shortly after 2:00 am, did the trip to the bathroom. Back to bed. Heard my partner wake and move about the house. Another sleepless being. Shortly after, I got up, and got more water. I kept trying to sleep. I kept dozing off, waking, and not sleeping. I figure I may have gotten about 3.5 hours of sleep. I am not rested. I am not alert. I am highly volatile, and likely to be easily irritated. I’m not making predictions or making assumptions; this is my now.

When I got up with the alarm and recognized my state of being for what it is, I made a point of alerting my partner – still awake, himself – and letting him know I’m high risk for tantrums and nastiness this morning. He shifted from delight at seeing me, to concern and tender caution. He made it easy to retreat to my own space, where it is at least quiet, and unlikely that someone will haplessly piss me off, without remembering the fragile state I’m in.

The weekend is a blur. I took yesterday off in observance of Veteran’s Day, so that someone else on my team could take it off today, comfortably. We’re both veterans. I will work today, fuzzy-headed, slowed-down from lack of sleep, irritable, and doing my best to be patient with random people thanking me for my service. (The temptation is always to explain very carefully why it wasn’t worth it, and how the price is too high; I already know they don’t understand, and I generally don’t bother.) They mean well, and generally in the moment they say the words, they are indeed attempting to communicate something heartfelt and important to them. I try to accept it, graciously. I can’t actually offer them absolution, if that is what they are seeking. There is no way to ‘validate their parking’ ethically on matters of war.

I can hear the family, on the other side of the door, talking and laughing. I feel a surge of pointless anger. I’m so tired. The anger isn’t rational, and there is no blame-worthy object at which to direct it. I didn’t sleep. I fell asleep dozens of times, never achieving a deep enough sleep to survive foot steps in the hallway, coughing, toilets flushing, trucks passing by, occasional nose-blowing, drawers, doors, or the noises of the pipes cooling, or whatever it is that pipes do that causes that knocking they sometimes do. These are all everyday sounds. Generally they are not sufficient to keep me awake, or to wake me. Last night I wasn’t sleeping well. Returning to a calm resting place wasn’t too hard. Even if I hadn’t been actually sleeping, and tired, and very much inclined to sleep, there’s always meditation to bring me to the edge of readiness to sleep, and from there it’s usually just a choice. Last night my experience was different. I didn’t sleep well.

Now I’ve been on about it for more than 500 words; it’s hard to think about anything but the sleep, and rest, I desperately need to function well when I didn’t get it. I dread going to work today.

Rain-drenched autumn flowers...no substitute for sleep.

Rain-drenched autumn flowers…no substitute for sleep.

I hurt this morning, too. I wonder if the pain kept me awake? I don’t recall now. I know I hurt.

Lovely blossoms, just less frequent than spring.

Lovely blossoms, less frequent than spring; even pain doesn’t hide autumn’s loveliness.

I’m almost numb with fatigue. I hadn’t slept well for a few days, although I had at least slept. It wasn’t enough to prepare me for this. I giggle slightly hysterically, frustrated by the rampant typing mistakes this morning, the inappropriate expression of amusement somehow my response to the internal seething. Yep. Tired. It’s going to be an interesting day at the office.

Sometimes the truth isn't grand, or illuminating.

Sometimes the truth isn’t grand, or illuminating.

Today isn’t wasted, in spite of the rough start. There’s always more to learn, and the challenges I face – when I face them well – show my strength. When I am less successful facing my challenges, I learn more, grow more, and find new questions to ask along this journey of discovery. Today is one day I’ll do so from the perspective of great fatigue, and limited resilience. The day is far from wasted; it has the potential to teach me something truly new about what I can do with my choices and my will, and where my values really lie. Today, as days go, is ideal for putting new practices to the test, and for seeing progress and growth in action. Tired isn’t synonymous with poor treatment. I still have choices. I still hold a standard of behavior in my treatment of others – and myself – that puts abuse out of reach, and challenges me to do more, better, on a day like today. Where might that take me? No idea. I know I am loved.

My traveling partner comes to me with a smile, and although my initial reaction is one of caution and suspicion (because I am, frankly, not entirely clear-headed), he reached out with love, wrapped me in his arms and held me, touching me gently, stroking my skin, rubbing my back in places he knows reliably hurt, and folding me in his love. Am I still tired? Oh yeah. Do I still hurt? Yep, unquestionably. I am loved, though, and that goes beyond pain, and beyond fatigue, and touches my heart. Even today.

Lovely autumn roses; more beautiful because they are unexpected.

Lovely autumn roses; more beautiful because they are unexpected.

Today is a good day to do my best. Today is a good day to avoid making assumptions. Today is a good day not to take stuff personally. Today is a good day to be impeccable with my words. Today is a good day to savor pleasant moments with my full attention. Today is a good day to let small stuff go. Today is a good day to be patient with myself, and with others. Today is a good day to take care of me, and mind the basics of good self-care – even if I didn’t get enough _______. (Today it’s ‘sleep’, tomorrow I might forget my vitamins. lol) Today is a good day to build a world that cares for me, by being one person I can always count on to do so.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Roses, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, Words

Practicing Takes Practice

October 30, 2014 //
0

Last night when I settled down to meditate, I found myself faced with a fairly child-like challenge; I was restless. I found my mind had wandered from meditation again and again, and I would bring it back to my breath each time. I also found, more than once, that I had changed positions, was actually fidgeting like a child, or in motion on my way between fidgeting and having changed positions. Suddenly, meditation was hard.  I felt distracted, and easily distractable. I paused and set a timer, and committed to being disciplined with my practice for that time period; neurons that fire together, wire together – the practicing itself matters.

When time came to sleep, I had a similar-but-different experience; I kept finding myself in a state of meditation, instead of drifting off to sleep!! Funny primate.

I didn’t sleep through the night in any continuous way; my brain stayed pretty busy. Hot flashes, night sweats, and surrealistic dreams helped pass the time between wakeful moments, and the rest I got seemed of good quality in spite of the weirdness. I woke twice in a way that somehow required me to get up, and ‘check the house for monsters’; I know that’s not really what grown ups think we’re doing when we wake in the night, prowl the house once, get a drink of water, and go back to bed, but if you can tell me how it’s actually different, I’ll be impressed. I just go ahead and call it ‘checking for monsters’. 🙂 There were none to be found, and I easily returned to sleep.

I woke fairly easily, to the alarm – that’s getting to be fairly common these days – and the morning has been pleasant enough. My coffee is very good. Everyone else is also awake, in the background of my consciousness I am aware of it, but the house is quiet in spite of the activity. I ache, the dull continuous ache, and crunching and grinding of arthritis sets a standard of tolerance for the headache, and the throbbing and burning of my ankle; none of it is enough to be truly noteworthy, but as a matter of awareness and perspective, I take note and make a point to take care of me by being compassionate, and alert to my needs. It would be nice to wake without the aches and pains…I don’t remember when the last time was that I did wake entirely pain-free. Has it been that long? Do we always hurt?

Building perspective with questions, and awareness; I have doubts about answers.

Building perspective with questions, and awareness; I have doubts about answers.

I find myself noticing that it is actually a challenge to take on a perspective I just don’t have…and as a curious exercise in thinking, I am wondering if building perspective can be harnessed to somehow be more aware of not being in pain, when it does occur; is a negative bias tending to overwrite those pain-free moments in my recollection? Now I am also thinking about carts and horses, chickens and eggs, and mathematical orders of operations, and other such things that don’t permit argument. lol

Hell of a beginning to a Thursday.

Today is a good day to think, and consider, and wonder, and take notice. Today is a good day to be open to something new, or fantastical. Today is a good day for whimsy, and novelty, and creativity, and the joy and delight of what is strange. Today is a good day to observe and enjoy the world.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Hormone Hell, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, women, Words

Snap, Crackle, Pop

October 29, 2014 //
1

I slept heavily last night and woke with effort to the insistent beeping of my alarm. My joints snap and crunch as I move through my morning routine; I’m stiff and have a headache. I feel vaguely aggravated, but aware that it is all biology, and there’s really nothing ‘wrong’ aside from the simple realities of aging, and paying the price of youthful misadventure. My coffee seemed to go cold as soon as I pulled the shot, which, while irritating, is irrelevant; I swallow the bitter brew in spite of that, preferring to avoid the headache that I could expect later if I chose to dump it out. I suppose I could have started over…

I feel far removed from a sense of contentment.

Yesterday evening was lovely. Dinner out and family time hanging out at home afterward. The evening looked promising for romance, too, but without any real agita it didn’t go that way after all.

I feel restless and annoyed, although there doesn’t seem any real reason for it. Yesterday, too. Hormones most likely, and at the tail end of things there’s no easy way to be certain of that; I just accept what is, and practice good practices, and hope that in simple practices of mindfulness, and continuing to return my attention to what is good and satisfying, I will perhaps let go of what is not with greater ease. Can I learn to be satisfied with less and less of what I think I want and need, until only satisfaction remains, whatever I may actually have?

I feel so human.

In a photograph of flowers it always looks like spring.

Let’s take a moment for something else…

Imagine yourself anywhere at all, right now, doing…something. Whatever you like. No limits. Sink into it. Make it real. Build it in your imagination with words and feelings; you know you can, it’s how thinking works, and most of our experience in based on this, more than what is ‘real’. So. Where are you? What are you doing? I am sitting at a small bistro table, on a pleasant morning, with a very good latte and enjoying the sunshine and flowers of my cottage garden, on the edge of some small friendly village. I’d be relaxing with my partner, conversing about whatever, feeling the breezes and waving to passing neighbors, and maybe sharing a warm scone while we talk about love. At least this morning, that’s where I’d be…some days I yearn for something different. Today I yearn for love, Love, and romance, and a quiet cottage garden.

Today is a good day for honest heartfelt yearning, and also a good day for contentment and satisfaction, and recognizing that what is can be amazing when I am not chasing what isn’t. Today is a good day to seek perspective, and for recognizing it when it is found. Today is a good day to smile in the face of my challenges; life’s curriculum would teach nothing if it were too easy. Today is a good day to accept that the challenges of this day become the strength of character I rest on tomorrow. Today is a good day to take another look at how I see the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5, Words

Seriously? What now?

October 28, 2014 //
0

Actually, it’s not that bad, I just woke feeling cross. Most likely cause, based on the sort of out of sorts that I am, would be hormones. That seems unreasonable and frustrating from the perspective of being ‘post menopause’…but I just barely claimed that prize, and I know the machinery is still winding down. I made a point to handle things very frankly, as gently as I could, and in clear simple language and a mostly cheerful tone when my traveling partner inquired how I am doing this morning. It actually required considerable effort not to launch emotional weapons of mass distraction, and since the effort was successful, it was also entirely worthwhile. No hard feelings, everyone safe and cared for; I am taking the morning to care for me, quietly.

A quiet bit of writing often puts my head right on the nastiness day…when I have something I feel moved to say, or reflect on, or even simply when some interesting bit of word play is stuck in my recollection from my dreams, or from the prior day’s interactions with others. Today… I don’t feel very inspired, just very cranky. There’s really nothing amiss. I slept well. I woke on time and feeling reasonably comfortable physically. My coffee is hot and tasty. There’s nothing more than the usual things coming up in the work day ahead of me, as far as I know now. It’s a day. A Tuesday, actually. Dinner out, after work, and I’m looking forward to the outing. Still, for now I am rather cross with myself, and potentially inclined to blame the world. It doesn’t seem very fair, and it isn’t very pleasant.

Meditation does help. I still don’t relish company in this state, and I continue to pass the time quietly, keeping to myself without rancor; I enjoy solitude, more than a little, and it is ever so much harder to hurt people I love casually through my irritability when I give myself room to have that experience without forcing it on them, too. I take deep cleansing breaths, do some yoga, too, and flip through pleasant images – beautiful photographs of things, places, flowers… my own pictures. I have no idea why they delight me so, and I find myself wondering what power they hold that such is true, and could I ‘reinstall’ my memory from my photographs, if ever there were a need?

The colors of autumn.

The colors of autumn.

Although it is more challenging to go through the steps when I feel so raw and irritable, I find significant value in the practical exercises from Rick Hanson’s “Just One Thing” and “Hardwiring Happiness” this morning. The difficulty is just going through the steps in an open and sincere way, without caving to cynicism, doubt, or letting the irritability that I feel undermine the simple goodness that exists in the world – it so often seems just out of reach when I am cross. There is value in making the effort. Each success, over time, results in improvements in my implicit memory – my default settings are becoming more positive, more content, and I am less prone to volatility. I sometimes find it emotionally painful to consider my prior perspective; the pain and discontent I endured as part of my everyday experience seems pretty horrific now. Noticing now, that I am noticing that, I take time to feel compassion for that hurt creature for a moment, and to accept that she is me, and understand that I’m not there now. No tears, just a moment of compassion, and recognition, even some gratitude for having the strength to go on long enough to find my way somewhere else in life.

Patterns exist. We have choices.

Patterns exist. We have choices.

The irritability begins to recede into the background, and slowly starts to dissipate. There was a time when that alone would seem so significant I’d rush into the world eager to restore contact, and find myself overwhelmed, unprepared, and not in the great shape I thought I was in. I would rush myself, mostly out of some sense of obligation to others. This morning, I take time to enjoy the improvement, without hurrying to the next thing, recognizing that I’m still dealing with the challenges, and being patient with myself. It’s a nice change to take care of me. It’s seems somewhat amusing that the irritability got my undivided attention so readily. As it recedes, I notice the headache and the nausea that seemed so unremarkable when I woke. This makes day 5 of something vaguely like morning sickness…and another reason I feel fairly certain the morning’s crankiness is likely due to hormones. The machinery is winding down. Sometimes that seems sad, this morning it simply is.

Today is a good day to take care of me with the same loving kindness and compassion I would show a partner, or lover, or friend – or human being. Today is a good day to accept my very best treatment from me – and from anyone else treating me well. Today is a good day to make a clear distinction between how I feel in the moment, and the actions I choose to take. Today is a good day to invest in a genuine smile, because smiling even feels good. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Hormone Hell, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5, women, Words

Timing and Context

October 26, 2014 //
0

I woke too early for a Sunday morning, and by that I mean, I’d have liked to sleep a bit longer, but I am awake. I woke with a sense of urgency, and a heart full of troubling emotions. The urgency turned out to be easily addressed by indoor plumbing; being human remains a very biological experience.

Have a flower

Living things, living.

The remaining emotions seem, even now, a hodge-podge of weirdness on the blue end of the emotional spectrum, and some anxiety thrown in there for added ‘fun’. When I faced the emotions head-on, with compassion for my experience, they mostly receded into the background. This is consistent with my experience of emotions that are not specifically tied to actual here-and-now events or experiences. So, I woke with linger emotions from dreams, perhaps, or simply with some built-in chemical cocktail coursing through my blood stream that my brain interprets as ’emotions’, but may not be. Last but certainly not most rare, I could be misinterpreting what I am feeling; anxiety and excitement have a lot of chemistry in common, and I am going on a date with my traveling partner today – very exciting, indeed. 🙂

Taking inventory of the experience I’m having right now, I feel rather breathless, as though it is actually difficult to take a deep breath; my diaphragm feels very tight and deep cleansing breaths require both focus and effort. I’m in pain, but less than has been so common recently, still, my back feels still and my muscles send me clear indications that the positions I took during the night may not have been ideal for later comfort; shoulder and neck pain in my muscles give that away. The snap and pop of joints that don’t hurt reminds me to be gentle with myself, to slow down, and to move with purpose; I’m still losing weight, and there’s some slack in joints, tendons, and connective tissue that puts me at risk of easy injury.

I’m still finding this breathless, rather anxious-feeling core, unmitigated by yoga or meditation. I take another deep breath and relax, feeling the ebb and flow of it. Although I did read “The Giver” before bed last night (perhaps not ideal nighttime reading for someone with sleep and nightmare challenges, honestly), my own dreams were not filled with it, they were filled with love and lust and sex and life…considering it in this now moment, the feeling of ‘anxiety’ and breathlessness suddenly spikes. Oh. I get it now. It’s the sex thing. lol. Damn it. Being 51, and post-menopause, has done not one thing to reduce my sex drive, or my interest in sex, or curb the maddening libido that is one of life’s gifts to me, if anything it seems more pronounced than ever – and now I needn’t worry about pregnancy. Younger me, back in the distance time of my 20s, would be so thrilled! lol. I mostly find the din of urgent sexual desire to be an impediment to contentment, because there really isn’t much chance at fulfilling the seething need; it’s too much to ask of another person, there are a lot of other things going on, and we all have so much to do… I love the feeling of being aroused, eager, excited, even yearning for sexual contact and satisfaction is largely a very positive and life-affirming experience…but I also have to take time out to work for living, get some things done around the house, take care of me… and my partner is  human, too, with his own needs, desires, limits, workload, time and lack of time, energy and lack of energy… in short; everyone at this party is human.  I have spent most of my adulthood feeling like my sexual needs are not needs that can actually be met in any sustained way, you’d think by now I’d be used to it. lol

A much younger me, a bubblebath, and possibly contemplating similar challenges at a different time in life.

A much younger me, a bubblebath, and possibly contemplating similar challenges at a different time in life.

51 is a funny time of life to be this horny, too. It seems unexpected to some people, as though there is some magic shut-off switch at 49, and sex tends to be a less comfortable subject once the conversation isn’t also about people 18-40-something. lol. That, however, is not my baggage. 😉  What is my baggage is learning to comfortably manage unmet needs; unaddressed these emotions potentially lurk in the background waiting to hijack my experience with some unexpected tantrum or moment of generalized pissed-off-ed-ness that can really mess up a lovely day. As ideal as it would be, sex itself is not always the solution available. This particular conundrum is still in the ‘more about questions than answers’ stage, too. So.

Autumn leaves, rainfall, green grass... there's got to be a metaphor here, somewhere.

Autumn leaves, rainfall, green grass… there’s got to be a metaphor here, somewhere.

Today is a beautiful day to be so fortunate as to feel excited to be alive. Today is a good day to be able to feel profoundly excited by my partner, such that just living alongside him day after day is this exciting. Today is a good day to be human, to be a being of emotion and sensation. Today is a good day to feel and to love. Today is a good day to practice willfully treating others well, regardless of my emotional state. Today is a good day to respect my own experience, with love and kindness, and recognize I am not alone. Today is a good day to be human; every piece of the puzzle rich with meaning, and potential for growth. Today is a good to enjoy the moment, and appreciate my great capacity to love. Today is a good day to change the world.

 

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, women
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