It's my happening... and it freaks me out

So, uh, I'm building a cabin, yeah?

Well, I'm not building it. I might contribute some amount of work to the project, but mostly it's going to be built by other people.

People who know what they are doing.

And that's a good thing.

So far, I am finding this a tremendously complex and daunting process. There are so many different people who need to do so many different things. Estimates have to be requested, acquired, considered and selected for each element of the project.

Decisions must be made.

I confirmed my third contractor today – and I am having a full-on anxiety meltdown.

I'm not entirely sure why. I mean, what's the worst that can happen? It can all get horribly fouled-up and I'll wind up with a bunch of debt for no actual building or a building that I can't live in and I will have to declare bankruptcy and lose this land, my shed, my un-winterized tiny home on wheels, the new building (or some unfinished part thereof) and have to start over from scratch. 

Well, that's not so bad, is it?

Afterall, it's only money and security and the comfort of feeling like I'm good at modern life. I think I can live without all of those things. I think I have the resilience to come through this if it's a massive disaster.

But, I hope it won't be.

Please, please, please, don't be a massive disaster.

Please.

Please.

Please.

Menopause: Mood Swings

I have noticed an interesting trend in my moods. The bouts of peri-menopausal euphoria I've been experiencing occasionally over the past couple of years have been extending into a pretty regular phenomenon. I can no expect to feel unreasonably happy and high for about 7-10 days out of every month.

Pair this with 4 or 5 days a month when I feel absolutely full of hate and have to bite my fingers to keep from trying to start big fights with people via email or Facebook.

Definitely a weird place to be.

I'm trying to stay even-Steven. No big decisions on the up days, no massive outburts on the down days. Afterall, there are still 15 days a month when I feel like myself. Plenty of time to get things done.

Makes me think of this song, Mood Swings, that I wrote in the 1990s and posted as part of my 52-song project last year. Have a listen, if you will.

Menopause and Euphoria

No one ever told me it would be like this. 

I started experiencing peri-menopausal symptoms in November 2012. I missed a period and had a bunch of hot flashes. I asked my doctor and she said that I should take a pregnancy test and if I wasn't pregnant, I was probably going into menopause.

She was very nonchalant, which was fine by me. I don't want my doctor going all hysterical on me just because I'm entering an inevitable next stage of my life.

Anyway, I wasn't pregnant, so it seemed likely that I was entering into The Change. I was 41, which is a little early, but still considered "within the 'normal' age range".

The Mythology of the DREADED change

I had heard a lot of things about menopause before I arrived here. I think many women do. I have witnessed some other women's experiences with Hormone Replacement Therapy and menopause-related emotional meltdowns. I have seen menopause be a mostly empowering experience for some women and a mostly disempowering experience for others.

Certainly, there are generational factors at play. Many women have pioneered greater openness and empowerment for women coming after them. I remember having tea with my grandmother and a dear friend of hers about twenty years ago. My grandmother's friend fanned herself enthusiastically during a hot flash and said to me, "I'm doing this, Alex, so that when you get here, you can fan yourself without feeling embarrassed." I do, and I always think of her.

The Reality

There have been some harsh things about menopause for me. My periods, which were pretty easy when I was a young woman, have been getting progressively worse since I hit 35 or so. At this point, they are way too many days of agony and ibuprophen. And my PMS is bad. Some days I feel so cranky and crazy that I prefer not to be in contact with other human beings. When I am, I try to stay conscious and not get too mean. But it's not always easy.

The Secret Awesomeness

The first time it happened, I was taken by surprise.

I experienced a couple of days of absolute euphoria.

I mean, high-as-a-kite, grinning-like-a-hyena euphoria.

Everything felt awesome, delightful, blissful.

Being someone who hasn't experimented with drug use or long-distance running, I couldn't remember ever having felt like that before. But it's what I can imagine a really good high might feel like and it gives me some insight into why people might chase that experience.

When it first happened, I didn't know what was going on. I mean, I often feel happy, but not like that. I began to wonder if it might be a menopause thing.

I googled and found this blog post from Barbara Younger, along with some other accounts of menopausal euphoria. I also read the Wikipedia article about euphoria, and saw how heavily pathologized it is in Western medicine.

Personally, I look at it as a gift. It's been happening to me a couple of times a year for a couple of days at a time. While euphoric spells are not a good time to make major life decisions, they are an excellent time to let go and be. Enjoy the ride, some hormonal compensation for all of the crankiness and misery.

Euphoria and depression

I've been struggling with depression for quite a few months now and last week, just in the middle of wondering if I was ever going to stop feeling depressed, I hit a bout of euphoria. Suddenly, I felt wonderful. Nothing had changed in my external world, but my brain chemistry had suddenly shifted and everything felt different.

It had the effect of hitting the reset button, reminding me that so much of our experience is due to our brain state. I followed that euphoric spell with two days of listening to inspirational TED Talks, like this one. I could feel my neurons firing as I learned and digested new information about the world. I've begun to feel better. I'm smiling more often and feeling better about myself.

Knowing the relapsing-remitting nature of the depression I've experienced so far, I'm probably not out of the woods yet. However, I am feeling more connected to the present moment and more skeptical about my brain states. There is difficult and there is easy and there is everything in between. And really, nothing is very different from anything else, but for the meaning we grant it in the present moment.

Thanks, Menopause. I needed that.

Editor's note: technically, in many places where I wrote "menopause" above, I should have written "peri-menopause", but that just sounds too pedantic. I'm sure you knew what I meant.

Design Your Year: 2015

I find December difficult. I call it Holiday Seasonal Affective Disorder (or H-SAD): a dislike of the short days, the mandatory gaiety (or at the very least the struggle not to harsh others' buzz) and the rampant consumerism. Most years, I find myself wishing I could go to bed on December 1st and wake up on the 31st, just in time to bid the old year, and especially December, a hearty farewell.

This year, December has been particularly difficult. The past year has been a doozy – lots of heartbreak, some serious illness in my family, the realization that I've made some big mistakes over the past couple of years and am now facing the consequences of those decisions, an ensuing depression, and my struggles to answer a call from within to take better care of myself, including doing some challenging work to transform my relationship with food and eating. 

Yes, 2014, you were a big, bad year. One for the books. 

There can be something sweet about closing the door on a difficult year

Well, bittersweet, at least. Which is to say, that I've been mostly feeling bitter. I definitely have a tendency toward the year-end review, and I have been looking back over this past year with a bad attitude, my disappointments and pain looming much larger than my accomplishments and blessings. The sweet part though, is that time marches on and the present becomes the past. Wounds begin to heal and hope begins to return.

I am a fan of new years in general – I like the feeling of a fresh start, the feeling of possibilities and potential. The chance to re-think and change things, to make better decisions for myself, to evolve and grow. 

I know it's just an artificial line in our invented sense of time. Every day is the beginning of another 365, but personally, I'm always happy to draw a line shortly after Christmas and start again.

A little help...!?

I felt like I needed a some extra mojo to shape a plan for some new and different experiences in 2015. When I read that Jamie Ridler was offering a planning workshop called "Design Your Year", I was  very interested. Jamie is a creativity coach in Toronto and I've done work with her in the past, including a dream board workshop, a glorious creativity-sparking dance party and participating in the Kickin' It Old Skool Blogathon (which did wonders for my H-SAD last year). 

I'm not a formal planner, usually preferring to fly by the seat of my pants, but I felt in my gut that I wanted to take Jamie's class. Unfortunately, though, it was offered at a time that didn't work for my schedule. I had another commitment; I thought I had to let Jamie's class go. But then, I discovered that Jamie was making a playback of the class available until January 31, 2015 and I could do it any time before then. As soon as I heard that, I signed up.

I did the class this past weekend...

What Design Your Year looked like for me.

It was excellent!

I feel like it brought me a ton of clarity about what I want and what I need for 2015. And it was fun: with sticky notes, journaling exercises, visual exercises and lots of guidance from Jamie about the many possibilities: different ideas about how to structure, grow and release the ways I think about planning.

I often have a "get 'er done" attitude toward the year – for example: "this year I'm going to record and release a CD", or "this year I'm going to play as many gigs as I possibly can and find out if I have a chance at becoming famous." Yes, I don't usually shy away from big goals and I would even say that in the past I have had a tendency toward grandiosity. 

The coming year is going to be very different.

My hopes for 2015

I have a number of gentler, more personal and internal goals for 2015. I still want to make and share creative work, so I'm excited about my 2015 52-Song Project (more about that over on my music blog). And I plan to revive my old practice of running "Creative Marathons" near the solstices and equinoxes next year.

My main focus, though, is going to be on self-care and self-respect. I want (and need) to improve my ability to make decisions that are gentle, kind and decent to myself. I want to deepen my yoga practice, do more work around food, eating and body image and make peace with the past couple of years, through forgiveness, understanding and humility. 

I want 2015 to be a gentle year, a simple year, a fun and delightful year. I want it to be a peaceful year, a relaxed year, an easy year, a straightforward year. 

Most of all, I want this year to be for me. I have an overall tendency to give away a lot of my time and energy. Usually, I have lots to spare, so it's not a problem. Sadly though, I have shared too many buckets from my well and received too little rain over the past couple of years. I feel depleted. The coming year needs to be about conservation and renewal.

My word for the year

Until I started writing this blog post, I had forgotten about the word I set as my intention for 2014. It was "right-size" as declared in a blog post a little less than 12 months ago. I did make some steps toward right-sizing with my tiny home and de-cluttering efforts, but 2014 had its own ideas and the word it dictated for the year was heartbreak.

There are lots of contenders for 2015's word. Humility. Self-Care. Respect. Authenticity. Courage. Acceptance. But in the final analysis, I believe my word for 2015 is:

***

Do you have a word in mind for the year ahead? I'd love if you shared your word (or any other thoughts) in the comments below. Happy New Year, everyone! I hope 2015 will be full of growth for you!

PS: If you're interested in taking Jamie's planning class, I highly recommend it! It's available until January 31, 2015. Here's the link again: "Design Your Year"