TMI

Back in February or so I was having some severe dramas with my shoulder. And at that same time my monthly cycle was out of whack - just missed one altogether, an eight week gap. I started tracking the monthly cycles and they were going three weeks, three weeks, five weeks, like that, and then next time I went to the doctor I took them in, but I didn't see my normal doctor and the guy I did see what kind of a jerk to me. I showed him the changing date ranges and he said, "Yeah. Well, you're at that age," really cavalierly, and I think I must have reacted because I remember he said, "Well, some women find it a relief."

So just in the last few days the shoulder thing has kind of started up again, and it started so suddenly and with so little provocation that I'm wondering if it's a chemical/hormonal thing, actually, and not ergonomic at its base, because I'm also late, late, late. Maybe the squinching of all the muscles in my shoudular region is a chemical thing from some hormone confusion happening in my woman's body, women's bodies being so complicated generally. (Have you ever read how periods actually happen? The tiniest, tiniest thing goes from one place to another, and it sets off this huge, complicated, interrelated chain reaction, and then it resets and starts all over again. Check out Our Bodies Ourselves. It boggles the mind.)

So I was reflecting on this whole looming change of life thing, and finally got an articulation of why I'm kind of not at all okay with it. A conversation with someone in my head:

"So when my relationship broke up, I guess I always imagined I could start over again with someone new, and this time it might be possible to have it all - the whole husband and babies thing. But it turns out it's not possible."

It's not. Possible.

(That is a big deal, Replacement Doctor. That is grief and loss. Not a relief.)