A red cast on my dominant arm covering my thumb following my forearm until two fingers from elbow. Talk about a major inconvenience for a busy girl. Brushing teeth now becomes a big effort. Just squeezing out the toothpaste and unscrewing the top of the tube is hard.
Reframing life in an instant is hard. Cutting up foods is not safe all of the sudden. Teaching yourself to eat with a fork in your non-dominant hand is comical and messy to say the least. Missing out on fun with friends is a big bummer, too. I figured I’d take this time to scribble my woes so I could giggle about them later. I do love a good reflection post.
My google search term has been “how to remove a fiberglass cast at home” on more than one occasion and that’s just within the first 24 hours. Pretty sad I know. I feel trapped in this thing. Sweating isn’t fun at all in a cast, but neither is showering. When I mentioned the toothpaste above I wasn’t kidding. However that is easier than soap in the shower, shampoo or even shaving. The list of oh craps could continue for a good bit.
The pickle I wanted from the jar today was soul crushing. The simple twist required sweat to drip from my eyebrow! I did find a good use for the cast at the grocery store…. Lining the plastic bags on the cast to carry to the car. It was like a coat rack for groceries. I did also break a nail at the grocery. That was just another item to log here as a big sigh moment.
The questions you get are also comical. Did you break your arm? No I casted myself for attention and inconvenience. I wish I was that talented or creative. The reality is I suffered an injury and the doc says the cast will help me heal. Time will tell.
My thumb is what I miss the most. From the selfie-pushing finger to gripping of the mouse for your computer. The thumb is what I miss the most. That thumb can grab your clothes when you dress. It’s just a crucial piece of your day and you miss it when it’s not available.
Want to test drive what it feels like to be me sidelined, go a few hours without your dominant hand and thumb. It won’t be fun. Rather, it will be humbling. Of course you need to try all the hard things required to live each day.
Life is real. Some days it’s adventures. Some days it’s heartaches. Today it’s just hard.
And a bra is really the hardest part of my day at the moment. It’s very much a love hate relationship, use your imagination.
I never really thought much about life over 50. Well I did think it’s half way to 100 and I’m going to live well beyond 50. That is about the extent of my thoughts.
Now I am here and there are some great parts of life to celebrate and some parts that are down right shitty. I normally wouldn’t gravitate to the shitty side of life however I decided it’s worth writing about it. Mainly because others might benefit from this rant and I’ll have a placeholder to look back on.
Menopause. The word. Why does it even start with men! Why just why?
I’m 52 and change. I have my normal aches and pains. I also have my daily inconveniences. I need to use the bathroom more frequently. Sometimes even more urgently than others. Many times in the middle of the night. I know I’m not alone. This is probably high on the list of inconveniences since it impacts daily life.
The water cooler talks or should I say the womanly chats are not about what your favorite dinner spot is anymore! It’s more of what supplements are you taking? What are your symptoms? What’s working? What’s not working? Are your joints hurting? The list goes on and on. This stage of life I wasn’t ready for. I blinked and menopause was at my doorstep. Front and center.
Irregular cycles. The inconsistency can drive you crazy. Flat out crazy. Fatigue one day. Sleepless the next. As I write it’s 3am. I should be tired. I am tired. However I can’t sleep. I really can’t even get comfortable in bed. Nobody is awake to know I’m just sitting here idle. A new kind of alien time. How I used to sleep as in body positioning is now uncomfortable. My favorite pillow makes me hot now. My blankets are just right one minute. Then I’m hot, hot, hot. Zero consistency. Let me say that louder for those in the back. I have zero consistency in many areas of life in this phase.
Men. O. Pause. Men can pause. They can hit pause and run away. They can be supportive. They can think you are bat shit crazy. In the blink of an eye your normal is now a new normal and it’s hard enough to adjust to for you. What about others around you? Life is messy and I will say this is definitely a messy stage. Are you supported? Does your family think you have lost your grip on life?
The annual checkups get more complex. A mammogram. A colonoscopy. A full body skin check. A bone density scan. The list goes on and on. How does one even manage without good insurance?
Somehow women push through the difficult stages of life. The teen years and all that goes along with it. Motherhood and the body changes, if that is your route. Raising kids and balancing life. Shifting to aging with grace. I’m in the aging with grace stage. The it’s time to have adult fun but balance with the blah of aging.
As I live through the muck of this stage of life I control what I can. My nutrition. My physical activity. My mental wellness. My circle of friends. My energy sucks. I choose wisely each day. It’s a requirement. If today I can sleep 9 hours, I choose sleep because another day this week I might not be so lucky. If I can get in an extra workout one day, I do it because the next two I might be sidelined.
I’m adapting to change. I’m saying yes to the unknown. I’m saying a shift in my routine is okay. This is how I’m managing my chaos. Adaptability for me may be different than others. I’m 100% okay with that. If I don’t fit the box for someone around me, that’s okay too. I’m not a fit for everyone at every moment.
I have a plan for my day today to start at 7am. What happens at 10am, 2pm and 5pm may be different than I envisioned. Why? Well I may be tired from being up most of the night. My body may say no thanks to what I originally planned. I may get moody and want to avoid people. This is a real fact of this stage and I am definitely a people person yet I like to avoid people sometimes. I’m adapting.
Adapting to change comes with other challenges. Impulsivity. The need to do something now. Immediately. My timeline not yours. Or maybe it’s stubbornness. No. No. No. I’m not going x. I’m not doing what you want. It’s just a game of no, no, no. I could go on and on about this topic but I will hit pause.
I will pause here for women. I will say take a deep breath. Inhale that deep breath. Exhale that toxic air that seems to be hindering you today. It will probably come back again tomorrow and the next day. It’s life. It’s a phase. Just breathe through it. That’s what I’m doing. I’m taking the good with the bad. I’m breathing in the sunshine and exhaling the bullshit.
I’m celebrating me. Many may not understand this phase of life if they haven’t hit the wall. The men-o-pause wall. The wall men want you to pause at. Do you reflect and move on? Do you cower and seek refuge? As a strong and fiercely independent woman, I pause. I study. I reflect. I change. I pivot sometimes on what seems like just my big toe and I jump. I lunge forward to what’s next. What’s waiting for me, because that’s all I know.
I know to enjoy what life is left. Live life to the fullest. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed thus I will plunge forward. Look for my travel stories. Watch me adventure. My why will always be why not. If you are reading this and feel stuck, get unstuck. Book a trip. Take a long walk. Find a new hobby. Find your joy. Do what makes you happy because you are living in this body of yours. Not the person next to you!
Stop comparing yourself to others. Don’t worry if you don’t fit the mold another wants. You focus on your survival of this stage in life. The people who stick around in this transitional phase are the true keepers in life.
It was pitch black. Nothing to see around you. The darkness of the early morning hours was compliments of blackout curtains. The room was quiet. Not a creature was stirring.
Then out of nowhere.
It happened.
The significant sound erupted.
Ah-choo! For the sneaky sneeze that snuck up on her. The bark of a cough that almost spun off the sneeze in harmony and then the more foul sound of….
A cross between a loud fart and and a shriek of a sound created when she realized she did that in the quiet room where sounds seem to echo without hesitation.
Tears of laughter begin. Oh the humility. She was beside herself. The sneeze. The cough. The fart. All sounds together. At once. She had to face the others in the room. Tears of laughter. Tears of humility. They continue for some time. What may have been nothing became something. Because she couldn’t contain herself.
How does one explain the bodily function of a cough plus a fart plus a sneeze? Snartough is the name I made up. She snarttoughed this morning causing havoc in the quiet room. Was this a first? Will it happen again? How would you handle a situation like this?
There were no lingering smells. There were no upset faces. It happened so fast. It was just a few crazy moments in time. Three bodily functions that may never raise an eyebrow in isolation but together they caused chaos and embarrassment.
Just a random post to capture a real life experience of recent days.
A recent conversation between friends turned to observations about an acquaintance of ours. In the past year or so she has become incredibly fit and muscular. The comments jumped back and forth: “Have you seen her?” “She is just a solid rock.” “I might have body envy.”
I thought about it and, remarkably, I totally don’t have body envy. At all.
I can look at her and think wow, she looks great. She is lean and strong. So it’s not that I don’t think she is in amazing shape…it’s more that I don’t have body envy of anyone.
Maybe there was a time when I looked at bodies and wished mine were different. But not now. Am I perfect? Nope. Mine is a body that has carried as much as 314 pounds (or more.) There is flab and extra skin hanging down that no amount of clean eating and gym work will ever take away. It’s me. It’s my story. Even though I am proud of my shoulders, if I lift my arms up there is a ton of deflated balloon skin that just drapes down. It is what it is. It is me.
It’s a choice for me. A choice to be comfortable in my skin. I’m pretty proud of where I am and what I can do. So no, I don’t have body envy. I wouldn’t change my story.
You know what I envy, if anything? A person’s spirit. Their soul. Their joy.
People with endless kindness. People with hearts for so many. People who always seem to find the bright side, even in the darkest of times. People who are caring, lively, giving.
Bodies are great. Goodness knows we need them and need to keep them healthy. But there are limits to what we can do to change them, especially after years and decades of experience (and, in some cases, enjoyment or abuse, depending on how you look at it.)
I was thinking about a title for this post for a few days. I wasn’t sure how to title it. Being stumped is not something that normally happens for me when it comes to titles. I’m a headlines girl for sure. Wonder why this one stumped me?
Nevertheless I found the title. Now I have to explain it. The observation deck can have multiple meanings for me. For some it’s a view point of sorts. From higher ground. Maybe it’s a skyscraper in a big city with an observation deck. Maybe it’s an observation point hanging over the Grand Canyon. A perch of sorts where one observes people, places, things, sports, and so on.
Recently I was at a tennis match and there was an observation deck filled with spectators. The elevated viewing area offered a different vantage point on the games as compared to ground level. This had me thinking about perches, overhangs, elevated surfaces which I might classify as an observation deck even if not elevated. An observing point for me. The list was endless.
The exercise bike on the second floor at the gym is a perch in my world where one can silently people watch. The bleachers at my kids’ sporting events. I always seem to pick the highest row to see the best view. Then I thought about other perches that may not be so elevated but that I would still consider an observation deck or platform in my life.
To give an example I have this photo below for you to visualize.
The bike view. Can you think of other moving observation platforms? A car. A plane. A train. A motorcycle. While moving what can you see different or up close to? Do you really need to be in a nosebleed section of the baseball stadium to observe the game?
I guess whatever platform or observation deck you have is fine. That’s why I named this Observation Overload. One thought spun in a million directions. For the purposes of this post, my observation point was ground level. Oddly enough I was in the muck of it all when I started observing busted biscuits. One here, one there, another over there. There were no Slim Jims just busted biscuits, the girl nearby noted. What on earth could I be talking about? People. Girls. Females. Fitness enthusiasts. Fun seekers. All with busted biscuits in different variations.
I was observing a bunch of girls, ladies and mature women actively participating in a movement activity outside. All from different backgrounds. Some thicker than others. Some more toned than others. Some older. Some younger. To my surprise, they all had busted biscuits of sorts. I didn’t coin the term but I’m sort of in awe of it at this point. A little distraction of sorts when I was served biscuits at the restaurant I was at the day I wrote this.
One gal had busted biscuits thanks to all the beers she drinks.
One had busted biscuits because of child rearing.
One had busted biscuits because she recently lost a lot of weight.
One had busted biscuits due to settling over the years. Pretty sure she was in her 70’s.
So many life reasons for the excess baggage also known as busted biscuits. Interesting odd way to phrase things but I was intrigued. I dazed off a bit in observation mode. Thinking. Wondering. Being curious in general.
Who cares about the busted biscuits? These ladies were moving. Some faster than others. Some with more giggles than others. Amazingly what they all exemplified was beauty. Beautiful stories. Beautiful memories. Beautiful people behind the busted biscuits. Beauty of being a woman with lived-in skin.
As a southern transplant one knows what busted biscuits look like. The container that opens up and oozes out with biscuit dough. I mean a southerner makes biscuits from scratch but a transplant can opt for the container or can of biscuits. The ones that ooze.
Most people can’t get enough of a good biscuits. Well as a thick girl myself, I have busted biscuits. You know that troublesome area that seems to hold only all your bad choices, stress, aches and so on. Normally right below the belly button. Some call it a pooch. Some call it flab. Today somebody referred to it as busted biscuits. The term made me giggle. Why did I never think of that. It truly is busted biscuits. But nobody throws away the biscuits when they ooze out. They prep them for baking. They enjoy them.
Then I thought to myself I have busted biscuits. But so does every other woman out here. And that’s what is beautiful. Each container of busted biscuits oozed out their own way just the the special person carrying the extra ooze. They didn’t get thrown to the side. They were living their best busted biscuits life in their own skin.
As I drifted in the mind this day. I thought how much I like my busted biscuits. Unique to just me. How lucky am I? How cool is it that all these women get together, busted biscuits and all and just move. Just move that body in the fitness kind of way. Just because you have some extra biscuit ooze upon you doesn’t mean you can’t move or you’re not athletic.
It just means you have a body that’s lived in. We are all made in different shapes and sizes. Everyone should embrace their appearance whether you are a Slim Jim or you carry busted biscuits.
Hope you enjoyed this lighthearted post about biscuits and observations.
2 Chicks and a blog 