I could be really stressed right now, but I'm not. For some reason, I have developed the ability to look at all my responsibilities, break them down into small chunks of action, tick them off one by one, and move forward on a fairly even emotional keel.
This welcome zen mentality might be attributable to the fact that my hormones are a little more stabilized. After a couple weeks, the evening primrose oil capsules I started taking knocked out all of the hot flashes entirely; where I was once suffering between fifteen and twenty intense hot flashes in a twenty-four hour period, I now cannot remember the last time I had one. I can once more enjoy hotter-than-the-surface-of-the-sun showers, I'm not cycling between pulling on and tossing off the blankets all night, and I haven't needed to whip out my little battery-operated portable fan to cool my sweating face in a very long time. While I wasn't having uncontrollable mood swings before (thank goodness I have at least been spared that peri-menopausal indignity!), I was almost always quietly floundering under a certain sense of doom and overwhelm. To now feel like I have the ability to handle just about anything thrown at me feels really, really good. It wasn't until I realized how calm I feel now that I realized how internally frantic I had felt only just recently.
At work, things are lovely--but they always have been. I love my job and the people I work with, but perhaps my newfound peace has helped me be more myself. I'm a little looser, a little more playful, a little less formal. I have stopped worrying about their perceptions of me while I continue to treat them with kindness and sisterly familiarity. I feel like I've finally stepped fully into the bond that the faculty share. Something has gelled in that arena that wasn't gelled before, even if we all got along just fine since the beginning. I can make them laugh now, and I am only ever funny when I am completely comfortable in my environment. I make Kim laugh so hard that he tells me I should be a standup comedian. Don't worry, I know my limits, and making a sociable, fun-loving guy from my generation laugh doesn't mean I'm the next Shayne Smith. It's just nice to feel so comfortable. I've even made the Millenials with their Millenial brand of humor, Skyler and Tanner, laugh a few times, which is a true accomplishment.
The students are also more comfortable with me. Many of them make a special effort to come and speak to me or just say hello or good-bye. Some of them ask me for advice and actually listen to me.
But now I'm just showing off, as my husband says.
Work is one thing. My duties at work are always neatly resolved, and I don't live with any of my co-workers or the students, which would make things more complicated. Work is tidy. Work is solvable. Everything else in life, however, isn't always neatly resolved and tucked away in a binder or file.
For example, my mother-in-law gets her second chemo treatment on Monday. She was suffering from unrelieved agonizing pain and extreme nausea, which I think even the strongest person would find demoralizing. She was in so much agony that she was ready to be done with it all and was on the verge of calling in end-of-life hospice care just to get the strongest pain relief possible, consequences be damned. Fortunately, her doctor was willing to try something experimental and injected cortisone into the schwannoma that has been growing in her spinal nerve sheath.
A schwannoma is a benign tumor that grows in nerve sheaths, and the pain this tumor created earlier this year was what originally spurred MIL to keep going to doctors until they found and diagnosed her with the schannoma and then the metastasizing ovarian cancer, which, without the pain she was experiencing, might have been overlooked entirely until it was too late. The cortisone shots stopped the pain, hallelujah! MIL is still feeling extremely nauseated, and there is nothing they have found that can stop that, and she is also depressed and tired, but she isn't as fatalistic as she was before. Hopefully, the chemo shrinks the tumors, which will then be removed in surgery, followed by a few more rounds of chemo to finish off the smaller tumors.
MIL and FIL have airplane tickets back home to Indiana on December 30, after which she will continue with treatment in the comfort of her own home because her health insurance will then be in Indiana. She will be so happy to see her dogs and cats again.
In other messy news, my parents, both fully vaccinated, are currently in quarantine because they tested positive for Covid. Fortunately, they haven't been very ill even though they are in their 70s. They haven't felt well, and they're very tired, but they haven't been dangerously sick, for which I am very grateful.
Happy news: Sian is into her third trimester of pregnancy with my new little GRANDSON! Did I mention that she's pregnant with a boy? She's tired and slightly nauseated, but the baby is growing perfectly and Sian has had no symptoms of preeclampsia. We all hope that she will be able to take this little guy home with her from the hospital with no NICU stays.
Speaking of preemies, my grandson, Tyler, is three and amazing. Of course he is! He's his mamma's and daddy's boy, and they are both brilliant. Tyler is articulate, kind, has a wonderful imagination, and knows all of his letters--both uppercase and lowercase. Most importantly of all, he loves his Nanna and always runs to give me hugs when I see him.
Sian's husband, Nathan, is graduating with his bachelors in Computer Science next week and will begin his new job at Goldman Sachs right after graduation. Sian and Nathan moved out of the married student housing at the university and found a wonderful three-bedroom town home a little closer to The Big City. Sian is enjoying having a real kitchen (counter space! cupboards! a pantry!) and Tyler is enjoying having his own room with a big boy bed and playing in the little yard. Nathan is taking very good care of his pregnant wife while studying for his finals next week.
I'm not ignoring my other children or the long list of crazy stuff that has happened recently, but this post is long enough. My other children are doing well, however, and are having their own little successes in life. I will talk more of them next time.
For now, this cool cat is signing out.
