I shall survive! This MONSTER bout of general grossness from seemingly all walks of my life, up to (and including) my Birthday, is almost over.
…And now that I am finally coming out of this two week cycle of woe…like passing a really shitty kidney stone from hell…I can report that the world is not ending after all…while showered and shaved, dyed painted and plucked…sitting in some sunshine.
…Sure, I’ve gained weight back…which is to be expected when you spend three days and nights on-end eating everything you can get your hands on, and getting pissed on every kind of fermented substance known to man. But it’s over and done…I survived the bitch, and it’s time to collect myself, and hit the waves of “better things” now.
It all began on Saturday night. This was when I closed the latest show with a particularly terrible performance, possibly due to the collective 4 hours of sleep I’d had in the past 24 hours leading up to it. Or possibly not. Maybe I just blew it full-turkey-out-the-ass all on my own. I dunno. But I’m never one to just roll over and let those kind of things just run off my back, whether it’s my actual fault or not. This only put more fuel behind the next 12 or so hours of supreme hormonal meltdown, leading into my 34th birthday on Monday.
…It basically ended in a Nora Ephron comedic sketch of me blubbering to myself in between hot flashes, whilst refusing anything to do with celebrations by anyone with good intentions, and instead closeting myself away in pajamas, to watch nonstop film alone, on loop, and consider the travesties of my youth, with a bottle (or several) of booze…and how I’ve accomplished nothing I set out to, or will, and I might as well eat this pizza and get even fatter, cuz who cares?
I like to call it “Bridget Jonesing.”
…Add to that the fact I’m pretty sure I was (and am) peri-menopausing on top of it.
…Like an idiot, I did research online. This is ruinous for people like me, with anxiety issues that won’t sleep for weeks at a time cuz a zit on my elbow might actually be a cancerous growth I don’t know about yet, but am too scared to really check out.
…So I fester.
…Only lately, it’s been: “fester and sweat.”
…Now, don’t get me wrong, I have always been a clammy sweater. Its in the Latino DNA. Only for the past…oh…year or so, I’ve had these random night-sweats-from-hell that I try to pretend aren’t really there. Except when they wake me at 3 am because I have to strip every fucking thing I’m wearing due to the fact they are doused and soaking wet with sweat. It’s been really special…lemme tell you…
…And as my BD got closer, and I brought it up to Ma, she was all, “Well, yeah…I mean, me and two generations back all had hysterectomies by your age…so who KNOWS when menopause hits this side of the family?”
…And I said, “ARE YOU TELLING ME ON THE EVE OF MY 34TH BIRTHDAY THAT I AM MENOPAUSAL?!?”
…And she said, “Well…maybe peri…”
…And I said, “I STILL GET ZITS ON A REGULAR BASIS! I’VE BEEN DYING THE WHITE FROM MY HAIR SINCE MY MID TWENTIES! I JUST FINISHED PLAYING MOTHER TO A MAN THREE YEARS OLDER THAN ME!! ARE YOU BEING REAL RIGHT NOW?!? HOW IS THIS FAIR?!?!”
…And she said, “Reasons.”
…So, needless to say, after a really shitty performance, in my really not best show, with streaks of white waiting to be dyed out of my temples, a bitchingly horrid period, and (apparently) peri-menopausal sweats, I decided to be terribly terribly depressed on the day of my birth.
I’m usually anxiety bound…so this was a new thing. It sucks too. Especially the involuntary bursting into tears bit. You know…the, “I should take a shower, but what’s the point, I’m fat anyway…my back hurts like I’ve been punched in the kidneys…I think I’ve bled so much I may have turned anemic and SUNOFABITCH it’s HOT IN HERE!”
…That kind of thing.
…Wrapped up in: ” All my LIFE I wanted to be EQUITY and pro, doing only theater by age 35, and now its only one year away and I’ll never make it…or if I do, I’d only work like once every five years…there aren’t enough houses here to support it anymore…and I’m a coward…totally unlike The BFF who just opened her first solo company in freakin’ New Orleans last week…you know…cuz she SAID so…and also, no matter WHAT I do, these last ten pounds just won’t go away. It’s like my body is STARVING for the fat…to keep it warm and sweaty (apparently)…also my mood swings could basically be categorized as step-one bipolar disorder…if that’s even a thing…and I’m in my mid-thirties…and STILL struggling to pay bills and live life and figure out my head…and sometimes am maybe a little lonely…but never enough to deal with the shit that people have to deal with when they come in twos…”
…And also: “CHOCOLATE!”
…And, “Maybe I need some sex IMMEDIATELY, or at least more often…or maybe not ever again. But definitely salt. Like NOW!”
…And, “How DARE my mother call me menopausal! Peri or otherwise!!!’
{gentle sob}
…It’s been an interesting few weeks, to say the least. And by “interesting” I mean: “viciously feminine and horrifying.” And though the actual REAL heat outside is not helping my body’s imaginary already over-indulgence, the sunlight does. So I’m trying my best to use it as a guide…to get out in it and sweat more (on purpose) and hydrate like a sonofabitch…and try, try, try to find the humor hiding in all my personal little woes. It’s there. They are the original basis of Rom-Coms (minus the love story bit)…which is totally fine with me…cuz I obviously have enough shit to deal with right now without adding secondary subplots into the mess.
…And whatever all THAT means/achieves in outting crap for some better self mental-help: so be it. Consider it writ. You can now commence to make fun of me. Meanwhile…I’m packing up and going for a walk. Like a person.
Hurrah for me.
~D