Keep trying

  I spent 45 minutes earlier today venting a journal update called "I Just Want My Life Back". When I tried to update it, the site said that I wasn't logged in (??) and I lost the entry, so now that I feel a BIT better, I'll try again.  I was hit again hard this past weekend with the gastrointestinal distress, along with back- and headaches. I got up only to feed my daughter and force down tofu and yogurt so I could take my vitamins (Sunday my guts were so bad I didn't bother withthe vitamins). Today, I woke up feeling Better -not Good, just Better. We got the little one off to school, and my husband and I had eggs and toast while we compared our plans for the day. Suddenly, I felt very tired. I laid down for ahalf hour, then J dropped me off at Trader Joe's. (I've discovered that sometimes just getting OUT of the house and amongst people helps....but not today). I got what I needed at the drug store, then tried to distract myself with some window shopping. Still not good. So I did my grocery shopping at TJ's, then went to sit down on thepatio of the local eatery. I had spent the last 48+ hours in the house and was determined to stay out for a while.* I pulled out a book and tried to concentrate on reading and how good the sun felt rather than the somersaults my stomach was doing. Finally, I gave up, and went home.   I spent the next two hours walking from room to room alternately shrieking retorts to all the unenlightened relatives who live far, far away and who try to give me advice without ever really understanding (like my mother-in-law, who insists that all I need to do is splash my face with cold water and I'd be fine) and crying into a towel. Now, it's much later. I had gotten my 9-year-old from school, helped her with her homework, put together a makeshift dinner, and am awaiting her emergence from the shower so we can do the pleasebrushyourteethandgotobed dance.   But this brings me to something I'd written -and lost- earlier that I need to get out....L was 7 when I started the really bad menopausal symptoms. Before that, we spent a lot of time together. I couldn't take her out by myself* but I had the patience and the ability to devote to her. That was with me having just epilepsy. Now, I spend at least, at LEAST, one-third of my time in bed feeling awful. My patience is gone, my tolerance is gone. L understands as much as any 9-yr-old could; Mommy's not feeling well again, don't bother her with anything. But she is a loud, vivacious, silly. creative, highly intelligent and interactive person....and when I'm menopausal, I just can't do it. I want peace and quiet, and I don't want to see what the cat is doing or hear what Spongebob said. I can't do any mothering because I need mothering. And my mother's gone. (Died of cervical cancer before I met my husband).  One of my main goals as stated in my profile is to get my comic strip started. But Linda Ojeda reminds us in her book, that women are living to 90 years or more, meaning that at fifty, we're only halfway through our lives. So I can get the strip started then, if I have to. But these years of my child's life...they're slipping away. When I'm fifty, she'll be thirteen. I have only a few years before we won't be reading together in bed, or playing tickle tag...and I'm having to spend most of them dealing with my damn HORMONES.   "But it's not your fault," says my Intelligent Self. "You're doing the best you can, and you know that she'll always love you".   Of course, but that's not going to bring back the time that's lost is it? And I tell my Intelligent Self to shove it where the sun doesn't shine. Thanks for reading, and thank you all for your support. *For those who don't know, I have epilepsy (thanks to a bicycle accident long before there were helmet laws.) One of the many problems this brings is that I cannot go out of the house with my child by myself, even if it's just around the block, because if I have a seizure, I could end up pushing her into traffic, or some pervert might see me writhing on the grass, stop his car, grab my daughter and disappear. Some 1-10 minutes later, I'd come to, and never know what happened. After what happened to Samantha Runyun and several other 6-yr-olds whose names I should remember but don't, it's just not worth the risk.   Oh,and no extended family to help at all. So we have to spend a lot of time at home, making the time I can go out by myself very precious.