Stress Levels Are High

I worked more than 50 hours this week. In the evenings, I had dinner with my parents on Tuesday and picked up foster kittens on Wednesday. Last night, I collapsed in a heap when I finally got home. Tonight, the same.

As a result, I have gotten no exercise all week. Well, I did a little yoga, but not a full workout since Sunday.

I've been trying to eat reasonably well, but haven't succeeded all that well. For the most part, I've been good during the day. But I bought some jelly beans a few weeks ago, and I ate way too many of them last night.

All of this means that I have many layers of stress. I have work stress, which isn't going to go away for at least another week. I have lack of exercise stress, which is caused when I don't get a chance to work out - since my body is used to getting regular exercise. And I have eating stress, exacerbated by the lack of exercise stress.

Layers and levels of stress are high.

Perimenopause Sucks

For more than 25 years, I was on birth control pills. One of the best side benefits of being on the pill is that you know exactly when you will have your period. It makes planning life much easier.

However, now that I'm in perimenopause, I can't plan around my period. Because I never know when it's going to come. For the months I worked at home, I didn't get my period at all. I just wasn't around other women enough to have my period "triggered".

Since I've been back working in an office since the beginning of the year, I've had several "extra" periods. And they last longer. The last one lasted 8 days. And several of those days were as heavy as when I was a teenager. Not the ideal by any stretch.

In the last days I was on the pill, I had a period for maybe 4 days, and most of those days were really light. I have been much more used to this scenario.

I'm hoping that, after a few more months in an office, my hormones will settle down again, and I'll get back to a more "normal" period. It probably still won't be possible to plan around it. But it would be good not to have more than one a month.

It's funny how one's expectations change. But I still think being perimenopausal sucks. If only because I'm a planner.

Not Like The Others.

Today I participated in an interesting exercise at work. It was called a Mentoring Circle. They asked three of us to be on the panel to talk about our work experiences and how we got to where we are.

I was the odd "man" out. The other two people on the panel were both much more senior than I am. I wondered about that, but the organizers told me when I got there today that they wanted leaders from all levels of the organization. So I guess I qualified. The other way that I was different from the other two is that I am new to my company. Both of my colleagues were "legacy" people - that is, staff from one of the many companies that my company acquired over the years. On the other hand, I didn't work for any of those companies - I'm not "legacy" anything.

Both of them were also what we call "in the line"; that is, they work directly for customers. On the other hand, I am "G&A" or overhead. One of the things that seems to be important for growth in our company is working directly for a customer. It's important to perform for a customer. It helps prove your worth to the company, which gives you a leg up for promotions. Something for me to think about in the future.

Finally, both of them have well-defined jobs and roles. I do not and never really have. In fact, I've had essentially the same job since I started at the company - at least officially. But my job has been more all over the map.

So I felt a bit like the children's game "Which of these is not like the other?".

And yet we had some things in common. Being open to new experiences. Being willing to take risks in our work. Being good performers.

After the end of the session, one of the participants came up to me and thanked me for coming from a different place. She too is relatively new to the company. Her role is nebulous. And it was good for her to know that there were others like her.

Maybe I'm not "like the others", but maybe that's okay.

How Do You Define "Date"?

Friday morning, I was eating breakfast at Hartsfield airport on my way back from Atlanta. I wanted a protein based breakfast, as opposed to just a carb one, so I went to an actual restaurant to eat. Well, it was really a bar, but it served breakfast, so that worked.

There were two young ladies serving the customers. At one point, they went behind the bar to enter their orders and get drinks (non-alcoholic ones) for their customers. They were chatting, as co-workers tend to do. The one girl was insisting that her previous evening qualified as a date, even though apparently "he" was insisting that it didn't. I was just overhearing and of course didn't ask any questions, but it sounded like a date to me. Apparently, his contention was it was not a date because it was a casual restaurant (I think it was Five Guys). Her contention was that it was a date because they had a meal together.

I myself have started trying to date again. I'm not good at the whole dating thing. And it occurs to me that part of the reason for this is the ambiguity of what is a date.

If you just meet for coffee, is that a date? I think meeting for drinks would constitute a date, so why not coffee? Coffee is much more casual, it's true. But still it would qualify, provided other conditions are met.

Did one of you call/text/email the other to arrange the excursion? If yes, I say it's a date.

Was it a meeting of just the two of you? If not, if there's a group of people getting together, then I would say it's not a date. Unless of course, he and you do something afterward just the two of you. Then it would qualify.

And yet, if someone asked me how many dates I've had with the guy I've recently met, I'd be hard-pressed to answer the question. Because all three meetings fit the qualifications above, and yet, they were all casual meetings. First, lunch. Which was really a fix-up. And so a date of sorts, but really a quasi-date because we spent the whole time trying to figure out if we liked each other enough to have a second - well, date. So I guess, yes, that means the first meeting was a date. Hmmm....

The second "date" was for lunch on a Sunday morning. Again, a very casual meeting. I did pick him up at his home. And I saw his place when I dropped him off. And we kissed for the first time. So perhaps that really does count as a date too.

Our third date was for snacks, he called it. I would have called it drinks, except we didn't sit at the bar. It was a quick meeting - only an hour or so.

I think what's bothering me is that all our "dates" - and I guess I really need to call them dates - have been in the daytime. And little romance has been involved, other than a few kisses at our second date.

So maybe it's just my definition, but I'm counting these three dates as dates, but I won't really feel like this guy and I are "dating" until we have dinner out a few times. And maybe even a movie or something else. Even a show or a concert would qualify. Just something a little less casual. And at night. :)

The Annual Purging Of The Files

I'm late this year. Here it is almost the end of March, and I'm just packing up my 2010 bills and starting to file my 2011 bills in the accordian file. You see, every year, I just reuse the same accordian file. I put the previous year's bills in a plastic bin for storage, toss out the bills from several years ago. It's a rotating system.

In these days, I can't just toss the old bills in the trash. Any bills that have any identifying information, including my Social Security number or the charge card account numbers, must be shredded before tossing. It's kind of a pain, and part of the reason that I hadn't dealt with rotated the bills until now.

It's always interesting to go back through a year's worth of bills. In addition to the bills themselves, I have archived important other papers - cards, invitations, etc. I've also starting to pull out my medical record information to put in a file I'm starting to keep. After all, I work in health IT, and I know one of the challenges is for people to keep their own medical histories. This is particularly important for me as my doctor doesn't use electronic records. My medical history is housed in several paper files. Who knows whether it's all really there? It's time for me to be part of the process and keep my own records.

The other thing I found in the purging this year was the originals of my student loan documentation. I originally took out my loans with the Department of Education. They have since rolled over to Sallie Mae. Again, considering the state of that organization, it behooves me to have my own documentation, don't you think?

So the annual purging of the files is a good thing, usually. Even it doesn't happen until March.

Refusing To Get Older

I am a great aunt. At 48. It's perhaps somewhat better than being a grandmother at 48. But it's still a quite strange concept to me. Grand- or great- anythings are old people, aren't they? I'm not old.

And yet, I have silver hair. So clearly I am old. Or older at least. And I've never shied away from saying my age. Never pretended that I was still 30, even before I stopped coloring my hair. So what's with the denial that I'm older?

My mother had knee replacement surgery a couple of weeks ago. This is the second time she's had a knee done, so she knew what to expect. Except that it's been 13 years since the last one, and there's a significant difference between being 67 and being 80. Her recovery is going fine for an 80-year-old, but she remembers her recovery as a 67-year-old and is frustrated that the recovery isn't going as quickly or easily. Even at almost 80, she refuses to be defeated by being older.

I understand her frustration and her denial. I spent most of the winter doing yoga for my primary form of exercise. There were a bunch of reasons for this, not the least of which was that it was too cold to run outside. But now that the weather is turning nicer, I want to go running again. I also signed up to run in the Race for the Cure in June. I could switch to being a walker, but I want to run not walk. But my knees - which I inherited from my mother - aren't so sure. These days, when I run, the first mile is problematic. Then the "juices" get flowing and running is less painful. My sister, who has the same bad knees, has given up running pretty much altogether. She's had orthoscopic surgery on both knees, so her bad knees are a level above mine though not quite as bad as my mother's. But given our genetic history, I wonder if running on what are getting to be older knees is better or worse for them. Am I strengthening the knees, tendons, and muscles by running, which will stave off surgeries? Or am I pushing my knees more than I should at this age? It's probably a question I should ask my doctor, except that I don't want to hear the answer. Denial at its finest.

On the scale of genetic issues that can kick in as one gets older, I'll take bad knees and premature gray hair. But they are reminders that I'm not as young as I used to be. As much as I may want to deny it, it's true. I am getting older. Maybe what I'm really refusing is letting it change my life.

After all, my 84-year-old father is flying across the country next week to participate in meetings for an organization he founded almost 10 years ago. When he was a spring chicken at 70+. Those genes I'll take - in spades. My parents have always kept active, in their own way refusing to age. And I firmly believe that's why they are in their 80s and among the healthiest 80-year-olds you'll ever meet.

The bottom line is that I think I'll continue to push myself, to accept new challenges, to admit my age but not let it dictate what I can and cannot do.

And maybe that's not a bad thing.

Productivity

Yesterday I spent many hours on airplanes. For all that we've improved modes of transportation amazingly in the last century, it still takes a very long time to get across the country. Long being a relative term, of course.

Usually I read on planes. I am a voracious reader and love nothing more than several hours with a good book. Planes are a good excuse for indulging in this pleasure as there's really not a whole lot else to do.

Yesterday, however, I decided to spend the time writing instead of reading. I had thought about bringing my laptop with me, in fact, to make the process easier. But that would have either meant bringing fewer clothes - um, no - or bringing a bigger suitcase. Since I was also trying to avoid having to check a bag, neither was a good option. So I went with the old-fashioned way - pen and paper.

I'll be honest. I mostly slept on the first leg of my journey. It had been a short night and I was tired. It's a short hop to Chicago anyway. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Still, I did start to lay out the timelines for the real stories for the two guys about whom I have not written. I have a terrible memory for time and events so I needed to figure out the sequence. It was not easy and I'm still not sure it's right.

On the second leg, from chicago to palm springs, I broke out the pen and paper and began to actually construct a chapter. I went with the third chapter of the series I have already started. I finished the real story the other week. And I was about a third of the way through the "bad" take on alternative events. What would have happened if things had gone wrong. So it seemed like a good place to start on the plane ride with the "good" side - what would have happened if everything had worked out.

It's an interesting process this reimagining of my life. The first question is at what point to branch off and start an alternative history. And then thinking about what would have had fo happen to make the alternative history good or bad. The bad is actually easier to come up with. In part, because the original history has the seeds of discontent. Easy to sow those seeds into more. It's harder to figure out what would have had fo happen to make the tale come out well. The compromises or changes in circumstances.

And yet, once I got started yesterday, the good flowed pretty easily off the end of my pen. I got 20 pages written, and I'm only up to the proposal.

Since people writing long hand is something of a dying art, I got a few questions from my fellow passengers. Was I writing a letter? A paper? Or what? When I said I was writing a book, I got the inevitable question about the topic. So I talked about my topic. Life reimagined. What would happen if I'd taken different paths. I didn't get into the specifics of the paths. But the idea seems intriguing to most people. I think most people can relate to the idea of what might have been. The fact that I'm focusing on the men in my life will either add to the interest or not.

So I was pleased with yesterday's productivity. And my hand is really sore.