My enthusiasm, to put it mildly, knows no bounds when happy situations arise. An exciting opportunity, conversations with friends, good news, wagging puppy-dog tails, happy coincidences, all enough to turn my volume up and send my hands all aflutter. On the other side, I tend to favor stoicism and keep my difficulties or feelings of sadness locked down and private.

As someone who is prone to overanalyze with a habit of self-reflection, I'm pretty aware of why I do this. It's my dad's drug of choice in dealing with life's bumps and epic sinkholes. To put lipstick on a pig, in a house where someone struggles with emotional instability you tend to NOT want to add to that atmosphere. And because what's a fire without one more log, I've learned over the last decade or so that my physical health is a factor.

I have resting bitch face what is thought to be one of the most common but also highly undiagnosed endocrine disorders in women, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (or PCOS). It's estimated that 5-10% of women have it, but less than half are ever diagnosed. Almost three quarters of women with PCOS will struggle with infertility. There's no one test that conclusively diagnoses this disorder and a lack of education and understanding from many doctors is a big problem.

PCOS plays havoc with your hormones, too many of some, not enough of others. Mood swings, losing hair where you want it and growing hair where you don't, adult acne, insulin resistance, type II diabetes, brain fog, fatigue, infertility, increased risk of certain types of cancer, increased risk for heart attack. The list goes on. There are some women with PCOS who do not gain weight (within the PCOS community often referred to as 'Thinsters') but many of us do. A lot, very suddenly. It's nigh impossible to not have self esteem issues with such blatant physical reminders of how little you feel feminine.

This is not the kind of thing I talk about outside of a very small circle of people. When I was officially diagnosed, I had family respond by telling me there was no such thing or that every woman produces cysts and I didn't know what I was talking about. I've had doctors do their very best to fat shame me, telling me to push away from the table as I continued to gain weight no matter what I did. I had a primary care doctor refuse to send me to an endocrinologist because she was convinced I was sitting around eating bags upon bags of crap every day. Thankfully at the time I had insurance that no longer required her referral and I went behind her back to one of the best endos in the area. One of the best decisions I ever made, but my journey with PCOS is a story for another day.

So between my learned stoicism, being shamed for my private but on display battle and then a heaping dash of diagnostically out of whack hormones, I can count on my hand the number of times I've cried in a decade, give or take. Emotionally numb. I don't cry when I'm so frustrated at 13 years (off and on) of trying to conceive my first child and someone tells me they know what I'm going through, it took them a year. I don't know that I've ever cried happy tears. That, to me, seems like a very... odd... reaction. (Stiff upper lip syndrome?)

This build-up of facts and personal context leads me to this morning. One of the first things I saw this morning on my social media were people posting recordings of a national morning show about PCOS. Ten seconds in, I burst into tears. Happy tears. I had to set my phone aside and collect myself figure out what in the hell was going on.

The segment discussed how there is new hope for women with PCOS because scientists think they've found a genetic component and potentially, for the first time ever, what might be causing it. The hope. The validation. I cannot adequately pin down this outpouring of emotion. I watched the clip again and each time tears flow. As someone who is not overly demonstrative, it borders on alarming.

So today is the day I cried happy tears. Here's hoping that there's even more positive firsts in my future.

First world problem: the thought of my birthday makes me tense up as I brace for whatever nonsense people around me feel like dishing out on my 'special day'. As I thought about writing a post about this, I mentally winced at how unimportant and whiny that idea is in the grand scheme of real life problems people face. The serious things I've faced in my life. Illness, death, isolation, why neon pink leopard print anything exists, fear, loss, epic mistakes. The very business of living. 

Stay with me. 

I've got Mommy issues. It's old news, I know. But over the last decade, my mother has really hit her stride making anything I do about her, the more personal or celebratory the situation, the bigger the scenario she needs to create. My husband, bless his heart, struggles with my birthday as well. When your most memorable childhood birthday gift is a backpack your dad picked up from work because your parents forgot you'd shot out of your mother x-number of years ago, you're entitled to have some unresolved emotions where gift-giving is concerned. I also suspect he doesn't like milk because his breast milk was nicotine flavored. Perhaps that's a topic for another time... 

Anyway, my sweetie and I have worked out a practical, if less than magical solution, as you do in a co-dependent viable marriage. Short, specific birthday lists. Relaxed, no-pressure plans. It's not rocket science, but I think we've all been around those couples where one drags the other around to restaurants or activities the other absolutely hates on special occasions and they spend the whole night bickering. Certainly expand each other's horizons, but time and place matter. Pick your battles, folks. 

We're almost there. Promise.

Factor in extraneous family members/issues (Surely you didn't think all's well within the family outside of my mom's illness. Ha! A thousand times, ha!) so on and so forth, and special days can boil down to a syrupy, hot mess. It's demoralizing to be honest. And while I felt that way for so long, clearly from my guilt tinged opening, I didn't believe I had a right to feel that way. But what a difference it's made in my life, even on one specific day in a year, to just.let.go. 

This is not the basis for some self-help, life transforming, six easy steps to unlocking your inner tap dancing unicorn kind of thing. I am on a quest to be happy, to let go of the things I can't change that drag me down. There's still a place for edgy, dark, snark and odd. I'm not looking to go full butterflies and daisies 24/7. But somewhere, being miserable and exhausted became the ultimate merit badges. 

So the past 9 months or so, I've been working on changing my own internal chatter. I didn't notice much difference until the last few weeks. I'm not feeding the world's poor, I get it. But I do think there's something to being the change you want to see in the world. Today, I was happy. I am happy. I went with the flow when warranted and took time for myself when I otherwise wouldn't have. I got the best of both worlds. And on my birthday no less. The usual people made their standard offering of trying to piddle on the parade. I dipped for a second, I rallied, I laughed at the energy wasted just to be a dick, and I moved on.  And you know what? To the people who matter in my life, my happiness today was down right infectious. 

My dad left behind his best Walter Matthau impression and gleefully recounted old stories throughout the day. My dad doesn't want to be a modern day Grumpier Old Man, it's crept up on him, like life has a tendency to do. But this dad today? He was joyful, ebullient even. He thanked me for how good my birthday was. Not because it was some perfectly planned anything, but just because of the way it went. My husband was cheerful and happy and loving and silly and all the best parts of himself today. He called me "Birthday Girl" at every opportunity. After dinner we snuck out and took an hour to ourselves to sit in companionable silence and sip a cool beverage together. My father-in-law even enjoyed the atmosphere, the stories, the silly banter around the table at dinner. Best of all, one of my nephews is here tonight. He got to share in and soak up the enjoyment of the day. Kids need that, adults too, but of all the things I want for the kiddos in my life, a sense of belonging, self-worth and happiness is what I want for them more than anything I can think of. My mom, before her less than delicate spiral to the edge of the abyss tonight, even had a good day. 

So here's to perhaps my best birthday ever. Perfectly imperfect in every way that counted. 

As I've mentioned in a previous post, I've got an aging parent with a mental illness. My mom's illness was adult onset, meaning one day in her late twenties (happily married, 3 healthy kids and excelling in her demanding career) her world spun on a dime, turned inside out and detonated. One minute my parents were hanging out with my maternal grandma in her kitchen, the next minute my mom was mid-psychotic break and screaming about hallucinations that had erupted from thin air. From my toddler years on through pre-teendom, everything as far as I saw it, was pretty mild mannered. I was aware my mom had a mental illness, but I didn't really understand what that meant. I knew she saw a special doctor and took a lot of medicine for it, and that the medicine made her sleep most of the day. She cooked, she took me to and from school (volunteering there for a time), we played cards and baked cookies together and so much more. Looking back, there were a few odd conversations here and there, but my point is I didn't get what mental illness really was because there wasn't anything to understand from my perspective. 

The older I got the more it seemed like she struggled. I was 13 or 14 the first time I visited my mom in a psychiatric hospital. It was the first time she'd been committed in over a decade and the decision clearly weighed heavily on my dad. I didn't realize this was coming, though I was completely aware of how things had been escalating in ways I'd never seen before. For the record, my mother did not self harm, nor was she a danger to us. She was paranoid, experienced intense hallucinations and delusions and basically believed no one could ever love her. She had such terrible moments that she cried great, wrenching, shrieking sobs all through the night. It wasn't something that went on for months on end either. When it starts, we're off to the psychiatrists. Medicines are adjusted or switched. We wait to see if there's an improvement. This time, she was going to have to go to the hospital. My dad came to me the night before he was going to take her (or maybe he was getting ready to take her in the middle of the night - we've had to do that before but my memory isn't exact here) and finally said that she was going to have to go away to the psychiatric hospital for a while to get help. He explained that when she was a kid, her dad had done things to her that a father shouldn't do and that was why she needed help. He said it was time I knew because of what I might be hearing until she was better and in the future. I can't tell you how much I appreciated this honest conversation, and many others we had about my mom's issues, over the years. 

It's been around a decade since my mom was last in a psychiatric hospital. By that time, my parents were living with my husband and I. This was the first (and so far only) time I was involved in getting her committed. A lot went into the tsunami that this was, but the short version is my mom tried therapy to deal with her childhood trauma for the first time ever. There is no greater understatement in the world than to say, this did not go well. The best part about all of this is, at the same time we (my dad and I) struggled to get my mother help and just keep our heads above water, my now ex-sister-in-law and brother threw a fit because I wouldn't let her family come to our house for Christmas so they could see the grandchildren. (Nevermind that until this they had been alternating the holidays between families, or just hosting it at their own house.) Half the time my mother hallucinated these people were climbing in trees outside her bedroom at night and taunting her, but we seriously had to fight this battle?! One of the ex-sister-in-law's sisters-in-law showed up at our house anyway and made some catty comment about she had shown up against our wishes.  My mother dissolved into tears in front of the whole family and couldn't be calmed down, so everyone just ended up having to leave. I think when I finally write a book about all of this, which is probably unavoidable, the title should be: And I'm the asshole? My dad and my husband will find it appropriate and hysterical. Everyone else will be less than amused. But I've gotten off track...

Having to get my mom committed to a psychiatric hospital when she was in deep in psychosis was a lot harder than I expected. It took two trips to the ER in the same night. She tried (and almost succeeded) to get me arrested. Luckily in the very next breath she told the nurse the anti-anxiety medicine they had given her a few hours earlier was actually some kind of stimulant. The nurse turned back to me, her expression instantly apologetic, and told me that she'd personally been the one who administered the shot and that she would now call for the on-call doctor to have her taken to the psychiatric ward. I had purposefully been the one to take her into the triage area. My dad was in the waiting room, but I figured after decades of doing this alone, it was time somebody step up. 

In the intervening years, my mom was referred to the best psychiatrist she's ever had. This woman is amazing and I try not to think about what my mom's life could have been like if she had access to modern psychiatric practices and this doctor. If you are not familiar with 1970s psychiatric practices, they make respectable horror stories, but not as much as the previous decades if I'm being fair. But her current doc has come into the picture too late to prevent some of the obvious damage made by other doctors and treatments, so we're doing the best we can with what we have. The mere mention of the word therapy sends my mom into full flight or fight mode. She's also terrified of any medicines that are prescribed to improve memory. She lives in fear of the possibility of remembering more and so believes that strengthening even short term memory is bad. 

My mom is officially a senior citizen. When we had the last go-round with a hospital, my dad and I had a talk about at we're just trying to get her life as good as it can get. The best balance of quality and quantity. But, at some point we knew we were going to move beyond that and have to cope with what was next. Over the last year, maybe two, my dad and I have had more talks about where she's really at. There has been an impressive decline of some kind. Is it situational? We've gotten good at learning her cycles and patterns to notice an issue before it becomes a 'hospital' issue. Her psychiatrist appreciates that.  Is it medication? Is this particular medical cocktail no longer meeting her needs, which has happened to her in the past.  Is it medical? Does she have some kind of underlying medical issue that she may not be aware of but is making her feel unwell and impacting her mental state? Is it an evolution of the disease as she ages? She's been diagnosed with some form of mental illness or another for almost 40 years. Is there a new phase to this thing we didn't consider was coming since we were so busy trying to take it day by day? 

At first I thought the increase in problems she was having might be situational. It made sense to me, it fit the pattern as a few things were going on that took my attention away from her. It doesn't seem as likely to me as issues continue. As far as medication, time will tell, but this feels different. You can tell when her meds aren't helping. This isn't quite the same. 

For the medical aspect, she's seen routinely by a handful of specialists and her primary care doc. She has enough peripheral medical issues that her blood work is monitored closely for a variety of things and nothing has turned up. My biggest concern in this area is some kind of dementia or Alzheimer's. She already couldn't pass a memory test between her medications and the state of her mind from everything. I remember visiting my mom's aunt in the nursing home when I was a kid. The memory of this relative sitting in a wheelchair in the hallway and clutching her Little Debbie box of treats my grandma had brought her has been at the forefront of my mind lately as I look at my mom when she's confused. 

The possibility of my mom's mental illness evolving shouldn't take me off guard as much as it does. Logically, most diseases impact people in different ways as they age. What starts as aching hands turns into trouble holding things then knots at your knuckles and loss of movement. But I think naively, just as I never considered my dad slowing down and needing naps every day, I never considered what aging mental illness was going to be like. It'll be easier for her to be upset by anything, harder for her to calm down and move forward. Harder for her to follow a conversation, easier for her to get confused and her brain to just stall. 

At her most recent visit to the psychiatrist, I addressed the concerns head on. I could tell by the look on the doc's face as she observed her for a few minutes that she was concerned. She requested info from my mom's other doctors and told us honestly that it was probably time to start talking about dementia, Alzheimer's and just plain aging with a mental illness. I felt relieved and sick at the same time. Mom's appointments have been pushed closer and the first follow-up after that visit is very soon. I am anxious but hoping for the best.

I've been saying something to my parents over the past few months, particularly when my mom has a rough day: We have to find a new normal. I am a control freak (Does it show? I'm sure it's not a hard guess as to contributing factors) but over the last 8 months I'm trying to learn to let go. 40-something years ago my dad negotiated all this on his own, with a bunch of little kids, and the help of my mom's mom when she could. Almost 10 years ago I stepped in and told my parents they wouldn't have to handle this alone anymore. We've created a new road before, we can do it again. We've got to figure out what is going to work for all of us now and work towards that. 

This excessively long post comes courtesy tonight's hiccup. We're just starting out on this latest new normal business. I've gotten my mom adult coloring and puzzle books to try to improve her grey matter. She's crazy smart, but doesn't want anyone to know, so crossword puzzles are good way for her to show off a bit without making her too antsy. She's losing her eye sight, so for her birthday my brother got her a large print puzzle book. Lately I have her get out the puzzle while I'm cooking dinner so she can spend time with me and I can make sure she's getting some non-threatening thinking in. She starts off doing the puzzle herself, then as her eyes get tired and she can't see to read well enough anymore, I take over and ask her the clues. Except tonight when I go to help she's all upset because she said she finished yesterdays herself. (She hadn't.) Several careful questions later, it was evident that she didn't really have a good grasp of when she was, who everyone was and what had been going on. In any other senior, I know exactly what you'd be thinking. But this has happened with my mom for years upon years. It's just not something that has been very common lately. And this confusion and being out of place lasted until she went to bed. It usually doesn't go on without other occurrences for that kind of time either. 

So in addition to whatever random and whimsical things I write about on this blog, there will be plenty of posts like this. Understand, this is not for anything other than my processing my experiences (and maybe for someone else to find this and go "I'm not alone!") and cataloging them for future me to reflect. Right now, I have both my parents, flaws and all. I'm deliriously grateful for that. I am grateful and happy and pensive and serious and silly and macabre and joyful and in general a regular imperfect person with a slightly unique set of experiences. Chances are that for the time being though, I'm going to be purging things like this out of my head as this is my first time exploring them through writing and (obviously, hello??) things are happening in this area of my life right now. 

Last year I got a little honey bee in my bonnet. A close friend of mine at the time was complaining (once again) about wanting to get out and try new things. She just couldn't think of what she'd like to do. All my ideas were laughed off until I finally said something to the effect of, "So sit around on your butt all day while your life passes you by. I'm going to go take a painting class and start doing stuff I've always wanted." She laughed me off, again, and changed the conversation back to herself. A little later I came across one of the paint classes offered by artists at local restaurants. I found a coupon, signed up and took my mom. My friend? She was pissed, resplendent in her passive-aggressive glory. I had done something I had always wanted to do, and she didn't have to go to something she'd made clear was beneath her. I took her painting later in the year and paid for her entry (love me a good coupon). She complained about the restaurant - not that we ate there - but seemed to have a good time until we were done and she complained that she thought it would be more fun. That little honey bee was idling inside my bonnet. 

Frenemies aside, I was still firmly gaining ground on my list of cool stuff I'd like to do/see/do some more. I've been painfully, awkwardly shy my whole life. In November, I joined a local writing group and signed up for the dreadfully timed NANOWRIMO. (Seriously great concept - write a novel/50,000 words in a month with thousands of others to cheer each other on. But November? Does no one else in this thing have Thanksgiving to cook for?!) Social anxiety on high, I marched myself into the local Denny's for the first meeting and survived. I went back the next week. I talked shop. Into the new year I even started frequenting the local-Seattle-transplanted coffee shop and expanding my drink and writing horizons. Making friends. Being more consistent in my writing time.

The coolest thing I did by the end of the year, was go to see The Book of Mormon by myself. I got a ticket for Christmas and had nobody else who wanted to go or could afford a ticket. I say that, because once I went, and laughed until I literally cried and my sides hurt, I caught holy hellfire. The little honey bee let me know in no uncertain terms, keep going. 

See, I have always prided myself on being helpful. I've always begrudged myself doing things just for me because I could be making someone else feel better, or making someone else happy. Don't want to see the movie I do? No problem. Need me to cover your ticket to see a play? I'm happy to have the company. Going to cancel on me again again again again again with no warning because you got a better offer? Of course it's just fine. I could go on. I'm ashamed to realize how many chances I give to people who in hindsight, used me. The length and depth of how I could go on, the complete and utter lack of any kind of any, even just emotional, reciprocity is jarring. And also? It's not really the point I'm going for.

Because what I'm going for is this: that bee in my bonnet is pleased as punch that I've kept going with doing my own thing. I'm still learning (I seriously doubt I'll ever stop.) and there are plenty of missteps I'm sure. But since January I've continued on doing the things I want to try. I've seen 2 concerts in a year, topping my previous best of 0. That's right, none. I've taken 4 last minute trips since December. I know I won't always be able to hit the highlights of my list and that's okay. I've done some really cool stuff. I've done some really nerdy stuff. I've planted hibiscus in large pots all around my front porch because they make me happy - and also because they're crazy easy to care for.

So today, in an act of (self) defiance, self-care and in the quest for enjoying life, I kept a hair appointment the old me would have long since cancelled. I gleefully had my hair chopped off and had a delightful but understated red hue put in. I proudly presented my birthday gift voucher and had a little aromatherapy time with a custom made aromatherapy perfume to take with me. Afterwards I sipped my coffee beverage of choice while I finished wrapping birthday gifts for my mom. I'm thinking maybe next week would be a good time for a pedicure with her. Life is short. But those hot towels after you get your legs scrubbed? Bliss, pure and simple.