So far, this year has been an absolute roller coaster of human emotion for me.  A coming together and a pulling apart ... all at once.  My hormones are running mach ninety because I'm near tears one moment and ready to explode the next.  I am slowly coming to understand how delicate the balance is between feeling okay and running over the edge like a lemming. 

I've been cogniscent of a change brewing within me for a year now but could not make sense of the extreme feelings and moods I was experiencing.  I've been feeling unhinged, off balance, and expectant.  Never sure of what might be around the bend but quite hopeful for what may come next.  Until a few weeks ago when the fulcrum shifted so dramatically that I thought my world had begun a slow descent into hell. 

I suddenly, as if I'd awoken and not known myself nor who I had become, felt unsure of everything and everyone.  I've always held such great focus in my life -- a certainty of reaching a goal and knowing what to do next.  Life became so illogical and unreasonable on so many levels that I lurched forward with a feeling of absolute resolution for total change. 

I was no longer happy with my career nor my personal life nor my income nor my house nor my pets nor my family nor friends.  It was as if life's sturdy sand had suddenly shifted under my feet and I fell ... reeling into the darkness with some vague memory of who I had become and how I got there in the first place.

Angry.  Tired.  Anxious.  Sad.  Empty.  Repeat.

I languished there, at the bottom of life's stairway to eternal happiness, gazing upward and backward until sanity found me once again.  Life's change ... woman's change ... had come calling. 

Somewhat unannounced and impromptu like the drunken woman at the Pub singing karoake never having taken voice lessons steeled by vodka and a meaningful look from her beau with a voice like silk.  I stumbled, briefly, until I realized what was happening inside of me.  My hormones had gone haywire!

Thank God I realized (and my girlfriend, Theresa, realized) that something was amiss and what the possible answer might be.  Can I just say that no one in the world prepared me for this incredible "change" (as they so affectionately call it).  Change hell ... it's more like having your life turned upside down and topsy turvy overnight. 

At least I know what I'm dealing with now.  I'm not dying of cancer (it's just hot flashes, my dear ...).  I'm not slowly going insane (it's just my hormones streaming out willy nilly every which way and back within moments).  I don't have chronic fatigue syndrome (it's just the absolute lack of sleep for days on end as I toss the covers off, put them back on, feel the urge to use the bathroom and repeat for five hours every night).  I don't have a "girl problem" (it's just that my estrogen levels are blocking any sort of cycle that I've relied upon since I turned 13).  I am rapidly aging before my very eyes -- where moisture once existed, there's dryness all over my face ... where no hair ever grew, I grasp tweezers to pluck out unruly long hairs on my chin and lip ... where once I was called "the most beautiful woman I have ever seen," I feel wrinkled and tired and depleted. 

I don't ever recall my Mother talking about this to me.  God, she's brave.  And so are so many other women that have gone through this malange of change without mention.  God bless them; all of them.  So brave and knowing.  In tune with themselves and assured about what comes next. 

I'm young for this to be happening.  And I hate it some days.  Others, I think about all of those years I prayed that I'd never have to buy another tampon in my life.  Little did I know what else comes with that privilege and I use that term loosely. 

Fear ye not.  I am turning another bend in life and seeing more clearly now.  While I may clutch and grasp at my youth, it is so and so it is done.  Tomorrow it's supposed to rain all day again and I'm happy about that.  It means I can lie about in my jammies and scribble here and there at my leisure.  Life is so good and rich and demands my attention again.  I am arriving just in time for the very best years of my life.  F*ck, I hope they're right.  They must be.  There's legions of them professing it so.  With life, comes wisdom.  And with that wisdom, a great peace.  I never thought I'd make it this far.  I am fortunate and have much yet to do. 

Oh ... so much to enjoy.