The "Wonder" Years

I quipped on FB that we should call perimenopause, the "Wonder" years… I just don't have a clue as to what my physical "normal" is any more. For instance, my sleep cycle currently has me up in the mornings before 5. Sometimes I wake up in a sweat, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I've been dreaming, mostly not. I blamed it on the juvenile rooster (he just wasn't getting his "cock-a-doodle" down) but he's improved.

The good news is that I've shed 14lbs since moving to family land. (If I were being mean I'd say, "300 AND 14lbs…just suffice to say when you live with heavier people, you can bet you're gonna get fat.) I love the fact that it comes without effort and with very little thought. The warm weather prompted me to put on clothes from last summer; kinda cool to have some items almost slide off. I hadn't weighed myself since my last doctor visit (I checked the accuracy of a few family scales just for fun) and sure enough, the consensus is 14. And we have only just started the garden and, considering how sedentary we were the last 6 weeks, I have every reason to expect that my health will continue to improve without much angst. Gym memberships seem pretty frivolous when you spend an hour hauling rocks.

At this moment I'm enjoying how sitting in the 'Hut with the windows open feels like being outside. Chirping birds, a peacock wailing far away, the occasional rooster giving it his best, the flow of traffic, my cousins stirring around the compound… It just feels right that I'm not enclosed/encased in a house. Too much disconnect for me.

Or maybe I'm feeling so good because my oxytocin/good hormone levels feel astronomically higher than before. There's scientific proof that affection improves your health and sense of well-being. Kissing on kiddos several times a day has been my wonder-tonic.

I'm still getting a lot of "news" out of Lockhart and I have an incredible sense of relief not to be there. I liken it to escaping quicksand…my last two years there were much more of a struggle than I knew. I'm certain that my withdrawal created gossip/ill-will that I'm not even aware of and that's just fine. I'm still learning to let all of that go. I'm still working in Lockhart but I'm able to keep a low profile. I'm still un-learning the desire to cheer for others' misfortune. I wasn't like that before I moved to that town…

And if "un-learning" is truly the task at hand, then obviously the place to be is HOME.