Is this what I have to look forward to? (TMI warning)

I'll say upfront, this has been a difficult post to write. I don't usually give up much of myself and what I think in my posts.

This summer I turned 45. In many ways I don't feel older than in my 20s or 30s. Sure my joints creak more than they used to and the metabolism has definitely slowed down, but I don't feel particularly old. This spring, however, my body decided to tell me differently. This is a TMI warning, so if you don't want whining or PMS bitching, turn back now.

I had a melt-down last night. It was a melt-down that was a few months in the making. The Aussie hadn't known what had been eating at me, at least anything more than normal. I have melt-downs every so often, and usually they smack him upside the head. This melt-down's origins began back in May. In June, before my trip to NYC to meet up with her and my mother, I mentioned to my older sister that I'd started getting TOM twice a month. "That's how it starts," she said. How what starts?? I thought, stress? extra exercise? It wouldn't be the first time in my history that my system got out of whack (thanks senior year in college). I wasn't thinking it was "THAT." That. Peri-menopause. This was so not right. So not what I wanted to hear. Granted, the likelihood of our having a child at this point was slim-to-none, but it hadn't been because of fertility issues on my part. We still had dreams of having a child. Dreams that have been hard put to rest and have resulted in a lot of tears and hopes being washed down the drain. But they haven't been totally been put to rest, hence part of the melt-down. (Those of you who complain about your children being annoyances and wishing that you had more time to yourself, think of the rest of us who haven't been blessed with children. Imagine your lives without them. And now go give them a hug, even if they think you're nuts.)

So I looked more stuff up online. Symptoms described by a medical type website are as follows:

Physical:
changes in cycle - check (it was bad enough once a month, now I have to get it twice a month, with in-between break through to deal with too?)
hot flashes/night sweats - check (to be fair, I've always been a nuclear furnace at night, so this is nothing new)
PMS - check (hide the chocolate, kettle chips and frying pans)
unexplained weight gain - THIS IS SO NOT GOING TO HAPPEN

Emotional:
anger - check (fly off the broom handle anyone?)
anxiety - check (again, nothing terribly un-normal)
depression/irritability - check (what are you looking at??)
difficulty concentrating - what?
stress - Hello, I worked in NYC for almost 20 years. What's stress?
mood swings - Yeah, just ask my husband and the pork roast that got tossed back in the freezer last night. The pork roast, not my husband. He's not in the freezer.

This website quotes an unknown Dr. Northrup as follows: "Menopause is an uparalleled time to turn your life around and create a firm foundation for the most fulfilling, healthy, joy-filled years of life."

WTF?? I have to survive the "peri" part first, and I don't find ANYTHING fulfilling and joy-filled about it. I've been on the journey to lose weight and become more healthy for a little over a year now. Granted, for the last 6 months I've been losing and re-gaining the same 5 pounds of weight, but at least I've lost the 20 I gained after I moved to Texas. I've gotten on a training schedule, I've really started tracking what I'm eating, I'm going to do a half marathon in December. And now to deal with PMS, cramps from hell, water retention, bloating, cravings and becoming an uncontrollable, flaming, psychotic bitch twice a month on top of it?

Is it too much to ask for life to go back to normal?

Refocus

I need to get my head out of... well you know what I mean. It's time to refocus, stop whining and JUST DO IT. No one said this would be easy. I have to train hard and work for the mileage, and I will. And on the way I'll earn that finisher's medal too. I'll also earn the 13.1 tattoo that I'm thinking of getting. ;)

It's a struggle

I don't want to say that I'm not a runner, so don't expect great things from my running, but dammit, I'm working hard to become one. Today's training plan is 3.5 miles and strength training. I'll be the first to admit that I haven't really started strength training yet. Though, walking with two dogs, 65 and 35 pounds, that like to pull at their leashes, can be considered strength training in my book. When I woke up this morning at 5.45 I opened the door to let the dogs out and a blast of hot humid air hit me in the face. Curious, I turned on the tv and clicked over to the weather channel and the weatherbug widgit. It was 88 degrees and 58% humidity in my town. Yuck. So I decided that I would do my run at the rec center during my lunch hour, and went back to bed. Fast forward a number of hours later and I'm on a treadmill, listening to my iPod. I do a 3 minute warm-up and start running. I'm running at a pretty good pace for me, and I push on to 10 minutes of running. Walk break for a minute, and I plan to do 5 minutes running before the next walk break. I made it 3. Run a little, walk a little.... I made it to 2.41 miles according to my nike+. I was done done done. It's a struggle to get past 2 miles most days. Those are the hardest miles. I'm really looking forward to cooler weather so that it isn't such a struggle to train.

Is this cool or what?

I was trolling through blogs early this morning and came across this video of Lennie Kravitz crashing a concert in New Orleans. The kids performing are from the VOP Choir, a praise choir and band from a baptist church in Lewisville TX, right in my neck of the woods. These kids must have been stunned to have Lennie Kravitz show up while they were performing his song Fly Away. They can say they've jammed with Lennie Kravitz!

Accomplishment and Challenges

My friend Jeep Jenn wrote a guest post today over at Journey of Hearts. Something she said really rang true with me today. Actually, a few things she said did, but this in particular:

“When you accomplish something that’s a challenge, change your view of yourself!”

My view of myself is changing, or at least starting to change. Outside, I still view myself as a somewhat frumpy, heading towards middle-age, overweight woman. Funny, pictures of me show that too. On the inside, though, I'm viewing myself as something more. I'm viewing myself as someone who's becoming a runner, someone who's setting goals and is pushing herself towards accomplishing them. Jenn also says “Try something that you’ve always wanted to do, something that SCARES you!” I'm scaring myself these days by training for a half marathon. I can't say it's something I've always wanted to do. In fact, before this year it isn't something I ever had thought about doing at all. The Aussie pointed out last week on the way home from the airport that 13.1 miles is roughly the distance from our house to DFW. Say what? Am I nuts? Yes, probably. But I have a lot of friends in the jar of mixed nuts to keep me company!