Several years ago, Harper made a list of the things I love the most during the Christmas season.
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This morning I found the list in a cookbook I was using to make a big batch of bean chili. (Five different types of beans! Black! Pinto! Kidney! Garbanzo! Lentils!) The list made me happy because: 1. Harper’s handwriting, and 2. All still true.
After deciding that I didn’t have time to make the chili (tomorrow IS another day!), I jumped into the car and drove to my annual gynecological appointment and although I arrived early, I ended up being two minutes late because the player piano was doing some sort of jazz number and I was all in.
Here’s a fun story! When I was sitting on the exam table wearing nothing but a paper skirt, I looked across the room and noticed this bottle. Because I need a new pair of glasses, I thought it said “Cervical Yuck” and what an amazing product to have in a gynecological office! I’m very sad to report that it doesn’t say Cervical Yuck at all.
When you don’t have a cervix (like me!), the annual appointment is a fairly easy one. (No cervical yuck!) BUT, when the doctor starts throwing around words like Perimenopause and phrases like “can last for seven years” and “you are in it” I tend to make unpleasant faces.
Last night I found my white robe and the matching white headband that the girls absolutely despise. I wear that headband as much as I can during the holiday season because Mere Exposure Effect.
I dare you to tell me that I don’t look like a snow princess in that headband. (I’m not really daring you. I’m sort of sensitive these days.) Anyway, as perimenopause continues, Harper believes that I will start having demon fits, and she illustrated those fits by doing this to my photo.
Sadly, she might not be far off. Please stay tuned for the next seven years. (Meredith will be 20! Harper will be 18! I’ll look like Beautiful Snow Princess Dave Navarro!) ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>
Wait, wait. There’s a jazz pianist at your gynecologist’s office? Mine does not have any such amenity.
Also, you DO look like snow royalty in that headband.
Wow, it IS Snow Princess Dave Navarro! It’s really uncanny.
My NP said “perimenopause” to me this year, too. ????
Isn’t menopause a forgone conclusion after a hysterectomy? Or do you still have some lady bits in there? My mom kept an ovary, I think. I mean kept it intact, not like in her curio cabinet (largely because she didn’t have said cabinet).
Make them give you the drugs if you feel like you’re going crazy. My perimenopause manifested in insomnia and mood swings. They wanted to put me on anti-anxiety meds or an antidepressant, but I had very bad reactions to the ones they tried, so I begged for the low-dose BC they’d put me on for PMDD over a decade before and that smoothed things out.
Could Harper please give me those eyelashes?
Also, maybe the end of your battle with migraines is finally on the horizon. There *is* some good that can come from menopause. Example: I haven’t been cold in long over a decade!
Maybe if this country had had more Mere Exposure Effect for more years than 100, we wouldn’t be *in* this jam. (Although I’da thunk 100 years would’ve been *more* than enough time. Alas.)
The eyes are the scariest part of that photo. (I have that app too.)