things that came too early

Winter came early this year. Sometime at the turn of the month, which is befitting considering Samhain was traditionally a new year’s celebration of a kind, marking the end of a season, the end of an era in life. 

I’ve found myself driving, sitting in a train, walking and biking through the wintry landscape, Aah-ing and Ooh-ing all the way, but for the most part too on-the-go to stop and take pictures. For the past two or so weeks, I’ve been going to a neighboring town for career coaching every weekday. In the evenings and weekends, I’ve been meeting people, going to concerts, throwing and attending children’s parties, volunteering, going to the gym; all things that make me sound a bit like a battery-operated bunny, the kind that just keeps on jumping until its battery dies. But also all things that I enjoy, the being outgoing and busy and such.

In fact, last week it felt like a world of opportunities was born right there before me. At career coaching, I scored as an extrovert in Meyers-Briggs, much to my surprise. I suddenly became aware of all the amazing possibilities there were to further educate myself, to further my career, to forge my own path in this world while doing things I was passionate about. In the evenings I felt like someone a little different from my usual self; someone more social, more woke, more energetic.

Until Sunday morning came, and it all came crashing down as self-doubt set in. I woke up too early with all kinds of topical but trivial questions buzzing in my head like angry wasps, and I couldn’t find a way to fall back asleep again. I hate wasps. I especially hate the 5 a.m. wasps that make a hive in your head.

The same happened again in the very early hours of Monday morning, and by then I was convinced I was better off not making any changes, not taking any risks, and generally not going for anything that I didn’t already excel at. I was bound to fail anyway, because I was simply incompetent and unequipped for any of the potential career or lifestyle changes I had thought of making. Besides, not everybody liked me. In fact, most everybody probably hated me. I felt exhausted, sorry for myself, despised, and just plain idiotic.

On Wednesday, my period came two days early. Is that what it’s like when you approach middle age? Does your body suddenly start functioning unlike it has before, does it become more unreliable and irregular? Maybe. I haven’t googled that one yet. But, as I still felt as lousy as I had on the two or three previous days, I started wondering how many bad decisions, throughout centuries, have been made by my sisters, people of the womankind, because of PMS? That one I actually did google.

Almost all the pages I read through made me pull a face similar to the ok boomer face that you see Gen Z pulling, which is basically no face at all, just an indifferent gaze or a pitiful smile at the most, conveying the idea that the boomers in question obviously have no idea of what’s going on. I wonder how many of the health sites’ PMS pages have been written by male staff? I wonder how much research into this has been done by female scientists and female doctors after they finally became convinced it wasn't an imaginary condition and couldn't be treated with vibrators? I was too dizzy in the head to actually check on that. In any case, it did become apparent that people suffering from PMS or PMDD probably shouldn’t be making life-altering decisions because of depression, anxiety, and possible schizophrenic tendencies. I figured I better make an appointment, but it turned out the gynaecologist at my healthcare center is a man.

The last time I had an appointment with a male doctor, because of a weird sense of dizziness I had been feeling on and off for months, mainly at work, he told me it was probably because I was a sensitive person in a stressful job, i.e. a youngish female middle school teacher. Which I currently am not, anymore, but I am still dizzy. So thanks, but I’ll keep looking until I find someone who won’t presume I’m anything simply because I’m other.

Saturday came. I lounged about in a pair of bamboo leggings and a soft sweatshirt, feeling a tiny bit hungover from a dinner with a friend the night before that had stretched past midnight. It was a rare treat with a dinner + live music + a stand up show with an actual real life friend, but honestly, as much as I had been looking forward to it for weeks, I almost didn’t go. Because, well PMS, that nasty beast, made me dread it. On Saturday morning, despite the hangover, I was happy I did go, and thought about what I think is the greatest threat that social media poses: With all the connections online, it can be too easy to lose your need of connection offline. In real life, like. 

Saturday was quiet, and it gave me a lot of head space. I gave everything a lot of thought. I felt replenished by real life connection. I felt like I had been reminded enough of the importance of actually doing things. I hoped this had been carved on the very stone of my being: Real people, real doing, real work of life, above everything else. I hoped it had been carved deep enough, by now, that I might remember it in the face of the changes I was about to make.

I’d been telling myself I need to move this here little online journal to a different domain & make it more fancy before returning to my Instagram proper, because I had gotten it into my head somehow that I really really had to. I feel the day of return might be coming too early, in this respect, given that I don’t feel particularly inspired to do anything too technical right now, but I do feel inspired to return to Instagram. It’s these mental blocks we set on our own paths, man, they do keep us blocked in a pattern of the same old, same old, and hinder us from doing the work we want and need to be doing. I think I might be done with them. Them, and the word 'but'.

Consider this here my winter manifesto. Never too early for one, I reckon.