Tired of playing "The Game"?

5 September 2012

Have you ever started your day, week, month, or year out like the eager puppy who keeps her eye on the ball?  No other thought enters your  brain except to go fetch the ball...go fetch the ball... and you keep going and going and going until you are about to collapse?  And you overdo it before realizing you've gone too far (again)... you body flung out on the soft bed of exhaustion as you pant long enough to catch your breath.  This isn't a new act for me.  I am abnormally good (or exceptionally bad) at it.  Pick me!  Pick me!  Pick me!  Crap!  I can't do it all.  Collapse.  No surprise to those witnessing it, but why is it I haven't I caught on earlier than this?

I am trying to stop playing the game.  It's absurd and nobody wins.  So today, my first official day of sick leave (since I technically have summers off)...I read a book.  I became absorbed in a fictitious world while lying in bed with the windows open.  The crisp, delicious 62 degree breeze wafted through the room while hunkered down under the covers.  I sprang up early and did a couple family errands and needed that rest by 8:30 am... but there was also something releasing about letting go for a few hours.

Later, the sun and a book... but those annoying wasps I have been strategically killing with orange pop traps were taking their revenge around me.  The sounds of the final moving day next door brought a mournful pall for much of the day outside until I insulated myself inside the walls of sheet rock and two by fours.  Then later, I visited with both the old and new neighbors simultaneously, stirring emotions like a drink mixed too strongly for a lightweight.

Physically, if you try doing this...borrow the old lady shower chair...seriously!  Take your naps.  Read your book.  Bask in the sun.  Take your medication until you figure out what this new body has in store.  Men don't realize all women go through.  Periods, cramps, bras, mood swings, pregnancy, labor, delivery, lactating, joints moving apart and back together, weaning, hormones, hot flashes, night sweats, flush, memory lapses, emotions... and all this takes place over decades instead of days.  No wonder men have pause over menopause.  I think they are constantly trying to catch up on what has happened that week or month!   Yet, it is a natural process that we needn't be afraid to acknowledge.  We are women and you can hear us roaring (or howling?).  No games.  Just real life.