In a good frothy tither, I have my husband accused falsely of not wanting to admit he is married on Facebook so he can replace me with a younger woman leaving me no choice but to divorce him and marry my last hope for security, an aging road hack who won't shut up about his time on Carson because who else would want me. It evolves into the husband not worrying about anything but himself himself himself because I am utterly unloveable, punishable for eternity for my past sins. I am old. Fat. Lopsided. There is a monologue of woe is me that makes my inner voice sound like it is locked in a Turkish prison. I am convinced that I am ugly and cling to my poor spouse for approval like a barnacle in heat. I pray that someone flirts with me to give me my self worth back. I just know I am going to leave this earth in poverty, shrouded in failure as a comic, writer, actor and lice killer. And seriously not funny. And I need to eat a cake. I wish that I could disappear. Only the gym can save others from my skewed logic because I know I can be calmed down using self-abuse aka the tread mill. And if I can't get to the gym....I shall.....die.
To be fair to myself, I ain't the only ball of chemicals in this apartment. In fact, not too many days ago I was sitting in a stew of nicotine withdrawal and moody tween that I could only defend myself from by curling up in the fetal position under the covers and pray that no one found the lump until the stench of emotions passed back into the gate of sanity. But I don't get points for my tolerance transferable to my weepy depressed moments, nor should I. Although I want to really really hard. It would be so much easier to feel like a victim, my go-to mood when there is too much of some hormone thing floating around in my brain.
The good thing about being this slightly less elastic age, is that I recognize the patterns. I still recall the first time I put two and two together, recognized that the onslaught of irrational anger and my body were tied together. I was working in a restaurant in NYC probably agitated already but not to the degree that warranted this feeling. I was fighting an urge not to throw something at another waiter. He just PISSED ME OFF. And I was thinking "Why the hell don't you all just LEAVE ME ALONE" which is generally not an option when working in the service industry. And, of course, "NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME!" And something in the the middle of my mental rant clicked. "Oh," I thought, "I'm in a mooooodddd." And it made it so much easier. This wasn't me. It was my body chemistry. I acknowledged my erratic mental state and asked people to keep their distance as much as it was possible until the path cleared. Then I went about my business, quietly bitching the whole time when my back was turned to anyone in my path staff or customer, praying that it wasn't entirely a waste of time being there by killing the tip opportunities with my foul angst.
Truth is, those hormone mood swings are nothing next to a really severe imbalance. I used to have a lesion in my temporal lobe and, post-surgery after it was removed, the parts in my head were so damaged that my husband was a little afraid to sleep next to me for fear of not making it through the night in tact. That was a different kind of insane. The monologue of logic that usually accompanied pms or too much testosterone was drowned out by red anger. I wasn't just pissed off. I was FURIOUS. There was still just enough of me going on to relinquish to the tiredness that accompanied it. Thank God. Eventually, my head healed but, at the time, it...and I ....was scary as hell. I hated everything and wanted relief by releasing the anger. No matter what was in my path. At that moment, I was bat shit crazy. I guess in retrospect, he earned a little nicotine withdrawal pissy-ness. At least he didn't threaten to stab me in my sleep.
Bodies do these things when they change. They adjust to different elements introduced into their make up, evening out the literal imbalance induced. We are machines as much as we are personalities. We have fluids that need balance, parts that need tune ups and electricity running the synapsis in our heads that occasionally blow sparks. Its easy to forget that when we deal with another human being. Sometimes, our parts just ain't running well. We forgive the car for needing an oil change. I will try to remember to give the cranky 50-ish lady who is flop sweating in the check out line at T.J.Maxx the same courtesy.
Image via MDanys/Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindaugasdanys/
From the fiftyish .... Errrr.... Sixtyish lady.....Thanks!
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