Next?

I've always been a very impulsive sort. Now, to be OH so IN... I'm living in "the moment"! Not the planning kind, at least in terms of my longer term future. No white picket fence or husband with children even crossed my mind. I didn't consider whether to be a vet or a biologist or a poet or a journalist. I just never thought about any of that. (It's funny, I did think about writing a book about all the millions of career options at one point.) There never seemed to be a choice... it was business then work and work and work and work with occasional romantic interludes. I've taken a total of one true vacation my entire life Sept 2001 I went to France for a month. Every other vacation was mostly go visit family in CO... Oh, I take that back, Chris and I went to Costa Rica for a few weeks and we did go camping on Lake George for one night last summer. 

I'm not complaining or feeling bad for myself, mind you. Depending on your definition of vacation... I enjoy where I go and what I do. For decades I traveled all over the country by land and by air. No complaints. I guess it's just a middle age crisis. I may actually choose to pursue something as if I was 21 again... like from scratch... only now I have a 52 year old body tagging along. Perhaps it's teenage angst that I'm feeling? Rebellion and frustration at having to choose and I can't picture myself really happy enjoying any one thing for very long... at all. I think menopause is just a name for puberty when you're fifty. 

So the standard book definitions of puberty and menopause are strictly related to menstruation. A woefully inadequate expression of what the words normally mean in common speak. I could say that the best most confident and carefree days were "pre-menstruation" and perhaps a more fun way to look at middle age is "post-menstruation" and a return to the carefree energetic carefree times. Menstruation brought self consciousness at a new level... the odd body that was no longer mine.  All sorts of oddness came along with it, a body image weird responsibilities and rituals... I never wanted and never wanted children.

OK... so new thought I am free to return to the pre-menstruation state of mind. Pre smoking, pre drinking, pre eating too much... I think I rode bikes and read books and hid from my family mostly. Sounds like a plan. I'm pretty sure I believed in leprechauns, I wrote in my diary and played in the sandbox. It sounds better and better!

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