labingi

feeling really out of balance and off-kilter.

Trying to keep up energy for vampire ball with Josh tonight. I'm hoping we can at least make it to the midnight waltz. then we can go. that's all I want, really.

Hand washed my gown, for the first time. This will be my fourth time wearing it?

My body does not want a gown on it but we'll make it work.

I started bleeding today, very lightly, I've been cramping since yesterday. I let myself eat corn chips and granola and fresh figs for dinner last night. I have a rule that the first day of my period I get to eat whatever I want. I felt sooooooo terrible and guilty about it for hours, but when I woke up at 4am (as I always do, it's a trauma thing) my body thanked me, I felt warm and held and comforted and it was good. I was not wrong to eat chips and granola and fresh figs for dinner.

The figs are perfect right now. Such a lovely september fruit.

And soon there will be PERSIMMONS. My favorite.

...

Something I realized recently with some deep sadness is that I don't think I will ever be able to reconnect with people through journaling the way I did back in the 2000s. Right now, the only person I feel any familiarity with is someone who posts "daily happiness" about his cats and goes to disneyland a lot. It works because they are basic, everyday posts with basic info and nice photos pretty regularly, and I remember who they are. But for the folks who post long complex reflections, I can't keep track of who is who or how I know them or relate to past entries because I can't remember which one wrote what when. I can sort of remember, oh, this guy is the one who had cancer, that one is the one who is a teacher, this one one is x, whatever, but I get them all mixed up and the entries don't reference basic things about who they are so that I can re-remember anything.

My menopausal brain just cannot keep track.

This is not any sort of criticism of their writing style. I write this way too, and way worse, definitely. I am just writing for me. I gave up trying to write for others when all of my eljay friends vanished. I was so heartbroken and lonely, I just shut down the part of my heart that yearned for genuine connection through journaling. I had to assume I was all alone to be able to keep coming here. I am still friends with a handful of people from those days, one of which dramatically changed my life for the better in myriad ways, including being the reason I met my husband and one of my most beloved best friends/soulmates. She lives in my city now and we still trick-or-treat one another on Halloween. I am so grateful for her, always, and the other long-term friends that stuck for 20+ years.

But it won't work again, my little hurting menopause brain cannot keep track.

It's the same with fiction writing. If there are characters in a book, a name will pop up and I will have no idea, unless it is somehow explicit in the context, oh this is the sister with the vendetta or oh this is the love interest with the curly blonde hair or oh this is the prince with a chip on his shoulder - I cannot keep them straight to save my life. I seriously would need to take notes and refer back until I memorize them and it's SO HARD to do that. The last fiction book I was able to get through and remember any of the characters was Name of the Wind/Wise Man's Fear and that was what, 2012 that I read those? 2011?

I STILL remember Dena and Fela and Kvothe and Feluria and and and.

But going forward I don't know if I will be able to do this, anymore. My brain cannot keep track of basic things, let alone complex things. It really does feel terrifying, like losing ones mind, like having dementia, like taking crazy pills, I hate it so much.

Supposedly this is temporary and after ten or so years of synaptic connection "pruning" (a nice euphemism for a process that shrinks our brains by a full 20%) things will return to "normal" function. "We recover," says the literature, women actually come out the other side slightly sharper than men of the same age. But during? Forget it. I am surprised I can remember the names for colors at this point.

Anyway. I am tempted to simplify my entries somehow, but I don't know. Maybe it's just better to assume I'll be alone here and stay that way.

Aside from Michael B! That connection has actually stuck, come to think of it. :) Maybe all hope is not lost. I don't know.

...

Karissa's dad is doing better. But having her break down in tears about him being sick was mildly triggering, for me. I sometimes have the thought that, holy shit, all those kids I went to grad school with who didn't know what to say when my dad died, probably STILL have their dads, 25 years later. Holy shit there are people in their 60s who still have their dads! My stepbrother's 65yo wife still has her dad (and her mom). wtf!!!!!

It makes my brain and heart hurt to think about this.

I know most people have their moms, too. That I'm more used to running into and having to deal with - people just talk about their moms more, or at least, women do.

It gets jarring when someone loses a grandparent. But I'm slowly running out of friends young enough to have grandparents. I lost mine when I was very young, it never seemed abnormal but it was so painful later to listen to people describe in great detail their beloved grandparents and the elaborate funeral/memorials and a deep and cherished relationship and so many happy memories, none of these things I can relate to or ever got to have.

It is okay, it is all okay.

It's all just stories.

None of it really means anything, in the end.

In the end, my dust will flutter away and none of this will hurt anymore, and there will be no one to remember the hurt, or the love.

I try to hold this in my heart when I think about decluttering, and my body reacts with severe anxiety. "Nobody wants your shit," Sarah. It's all meaningless. It does not tie you to anything. It does not make your life more substantial or concrete or meaningful. It's all useless junk. Nobody wants it. It's in the way. It's a burden.

I am trying so hard not to be a burden.

It is exhausting.