A Little of This and a Little of That

What’s not to love about hairy carrots and surprise periods?

Hi, it’s me, and I’m glad you’re here. Not gonna lie, it was hard for me to show up this week. Nothing happened, just kind of in a funk. One of my garden boxes has soil in it that’s not holding water – it just runs through without sticking around to let the roots drink it in.¹ I think I know the issue – the bags of compost I bought last year were not fully decomposed – they were more like fine bark, which is why they’re not holding water. When I harvested my carrots last year, they were all hairy with fine roots growing out of the carrot itself, in search of water. 

I tried to find a picture, but a search of “hairy carrots” in my gardening journal app didn’t turn anything up, and I was afraid to google “hairy carrots.” If you can imagine someone – and I’m not naming names – who doesn’t shave their legs for six months over the winter, this is what a hairy carrot looks like.

In fact, I think that’s what I’m going to call my mild, situational depression from now on — I’m currently in my hairy carrot days. 

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I have an announcement:

Well, it’s more like a pre-announcement. I’m putting together a live Zoom class for the end of June called Tips, Tricks, and Magic for Creative Productivity² – it’s geared toward the unique challenges creatives experience managing time and/or projects due to our… how shall I say?... creative free spirit. I’m pre-announcing this because over the last couple weeks I’ve been self-sabotaging this effort in part due to my Imposter Syndrome.

But this is a thing I have to do because it’s on my list of Things To Try This Year, which is a list I wish I hadn’t made because trying feels scarier and filled with more rejection than just knowing it will for sure be an awesome thing! 😂

Mentioning it now is my accountability to follow through. I scheduled the class for Monday, June 26 — the real announcement is coming soon.

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The friend who called me out.

A couple weeks ago I mentioned here that I’m a low-to-medium risk person.³ My friend Melanie, whom I’ve known since high school church youth group, replied to that email and said:

“Aren’t you really secretly a jump-with-both-feet sort of person? You just need someone to give you a shove. You might act shocked, but don’t you secretly want that push?”

How. Dare. You.

Also?

She might be right. 

When I stop to think about it, I remember that:

• At age 19 I moved away from everything and everyone I knew in Minnesota and went to college in Seattle. Still here.

• At age 24, I quit my job and moved to small town New York because somebody said, hey I think you’d be good at doing this thing out here. It was an adventure I’ll never regret.

• I married Bryan five months after our first date, and this summer we celebrate 22 years.

• We bought our first house after a 15 minute tour, raised our babies in it, and still own it as a rental property.

I mean, it kinda seems like I jump in with both feet on the regular, yeah? So why do I feel like I’m afraid of everything and get overwhelmed making simple decisions? I’ve always joked about how they don’t make movies about people like me because what do I do that’s thrilling or illegal or brave? I definitely don’t have Main Character Energy – I’m just out here deadheading chamomile flowers at their peak enjoyment of life.

A few of the chamomile flowers I’ve murdered.

But I wonder if it’s about instinct. I trust my gut a lot. Sometimes I’ll tell Bryan it’s going to be okay, and he’ll be like How do you know? and I’ll be like, I just know. 

One of my favorite movies as a kid was The Man from Snowy River. We had it on VHS and I watched it over and over again, not for the romance or because Jim was handsome, but because of this one scene — the one in which Jim, without hesitation, leaps off the edge of a cliff while chasing a mob of horses, and everyone assumes he’s just dead now:

It is a magnificent, powerful moment where Jim’s instincts take over — he trusts his horse, he leans into his experience, and he knows what he’s after — so he jumps! Off a cliff! Probably without over analyzing it!

When Melanie called me out, this is the scene that immediately played in my head. I even heard the french horns in the background, that’s how ingrained this scene is in my psyche. I feel confident that I have instinct. I just know things in my Knower, and there are times I’ve trusted my gut and leaned into my experience because I knew what I wanted. Maybe I didn’t jump as boldly as Jim jumped, but maybe I have a Jim-like willingness to trip, fall, or get shoved off a cliff. Occasionally.

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Why am I still getting my period.

Okay, my bad for not easing into this subject with a little more warning, but the element of surprise is what my period is dishing me right now so that’s what I’m paying forward to you, as well.

I’m in the Menopause Onboarding phase of life called peri-menopause, which means my cycle is puttering along like a 1964 pickup truck that keeps stalling and backfiring but still has a little life left in it. 

It’s been four months since my last period.⁴ For most of my adult life I’ve been fairly regular, and when I start to feel irrationally irritated toward everyone and everything, one look at a calendar reminds me that it’s not me, it’s the hormones. I’ve literally paused mid-fight with Bryan to check my calendar, saw that the date checked out, and realized I was making up an offense because of hormones.

But now? 

🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️

I’m living in a perpetual What’s Behind Door Number Three! game show when it comes to irritability and anxiety. What is making Jen crazy today? I don’t know, Monty! I’ll trade that handful of sanity for what’s behind door number two! Oh shoot! I lost that deal!

The other thing nobody tells you about peri-menopause is that when you finally get your period again after four months or whatever, there is a … how shall I say? … flood of biblical proportions that makes you fear leaving the house or sitting down or sneezing. There are no napkins, sanitary or otherwise, to stop the inevitable bloodbath that ensues.

Official menopause is when you’ve been without a period for at least twelve months, and recently I was having a conversation with someone about this who was on month eleven of being period free. I was one part envious and two parts fatalistic about the notion that I would get to month eleven and have another period, because I can’t not assume the Worse Case Scenario, even when it comes to my own menstrual health.

Side note: I think as a society we should pass out milestone chips to celebrate peri-menopausal accomplishments. Like, when we gather for wine and gossip in the backyard she-shed I want someone to hand me a six month chip and a pre-rolled joint and be like, You made it this far bitch, keep going! Now let’s go howl at the moon.

If you read this far into the nonsense, thanks for sticking with me. You get five gold stars.

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Please come back next week - I’m sending out a newsletter I’ve been working on for a few weeks, now, on a subject I don’t talk much about publicly.

Until then,

Jen

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Your Turn

1. So…. how about the weather? Sure looks sunny out today. #TMIjen

2. What is it about friends who seem to know you better than yourself? I think it’s mostly the objective perspective, yeah? Do you have a friend who reminds you that occasionally you can be a bad ass? I have several.

3. Have we normalized period talk yet? Or was this really uncomfortable to read? I’m a fan of normalizing, by the way… but you probably knew that.

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News + Notes 🌼

Related past posts you may have missed:

The History of Birthdays (Sept 2022) - One of my earliest Substack posts, about some of the times I took a risk.

My Childhood Piano Teacher (Sept 2022) - Another early Subtack post about my first fear memory.

Someone Once Called Me a Thought Leader (Mar 2023) - Imposter Syndrome! I was terrified that somebody would finally figure out that I didn’t actually belong there.

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Shout out to my friend, Kim, who generously shared her story here last week. It was a big help to get a break from writing, plus I just love her story. I remember when she came over for dinner several years ago (pre-COVID) – it was the first time I heard her say she was making decisions that 10-year-old Kim would love, so it was great to read the full story.

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I’ve enjoyed listening to this podcast called Menopause Unmuted. Episodes are short, and the personal stories include a variety of circumstances, symptoms experienced, and emotions felt. I also like that the series includes stories from women of color, who are often overlooked and mistreated by the healthcare industry.

1. I plan to fix it by amending with a “raised bed” soil mix, but I have to wait until I pull a few things out, first.

2. I originally named it something boring, but Bryan zhuzhed it up for me.

3. Here’s the post in question:

4. I wrote, “It’s been four weeks since my last period,” and this song immediately popped into my head: