Author: comfortablymum6

A full time working, menopausal, mother of two living with my family in bucolic splendour amongst a menagerie of creatures, overgrown shrubs and hormonal tsunamis.

Will I never learn?
There are certain situations when you have committed and done the deed, you regret ever having put yourself in that position but there is no going back or way out.
You vow never to do it again. Ever.
Like childbirth or getting way too drunk and having a hell of a hangover.
I have just arrived for a full day at work in a very uncomfortable and poorly fitting pair of control pants which are making it difficult to breathe and threatening to cut off the circulation to my legs.
In this situation there may be one drastic solution.
Seriously considering going commando for the sake of my impending lower body ischaemia.

Trying to encapsulate what anxiety is like to someone unfamiliar with the concept.

Feeling like a very delicate, microscopically thin but surprisingly smooth and resilient balloon containing a number of hyperactive and rapidly breeding ferrets.
They can usually be placated by various strategies but unless you let a small ferret escape once in a while – at the risk of annoying, upsetting or maybe nipping one of the people around you, there is a likelihood the balloon will exceed its tensile strength and explode, releasing a Pandora’s box of unpleasantness and leaving behind a small, limp pile of remnants.

So if you have a unexpected encounter with a small and grumpy metaphorical ferret, please do not feel aggrieved. You are doing a public service and if you treat it kindly, you are likely to be dodging a veritable shitstorm.

More Facebook memories – this was written shortly before my beloved crap heap had its inevitable terminal event. Newer car currently about halfway to this state and dogs now = 4, one of which tries to dig a hole in the boot carpet whenever she is particularly wet and muddy.

As we live in the sticks down a bumpy and potholed country lane, I generally drive 25,000 miles a year and I regularly carry 3 honking and muddy dogs in the back, we normally buy a second hand, cheap to maintain Estate, never bother to wash it and I drive it till it falls apart.

I have just taken stock of my current wheels:

196000 miles on the clock.

Probably still silver but difficult to tell.

Rear windscreen opaque because wiper stopped working a couple of months ago and no functioning washers.

Front windscreen washers driven by the rear washer control after a bit of imaginative rewiring by the marvellous Ronnie to avoid having to install a new front washer motor.

Engine light permanently on after the EGR valve had to be blocked off (Ronnie again) because the onboard computer wouldn’t recognise it.

Passenger door needs a hefty yank to open it.

Clutch makes a disappointed sighing noise when depressed.

Exhaust rattles and has sprung a small leak so sounds like a motor cross bike.

Front spoiler missing due to some unauthorised off road driving by husband.

Large, pheasant shaped, dent in radiator grill.

Interesting squeaking sound coming from rear offside wheel solved by turning up radio.

Rear number plate flapping.

Interior (frankly) minging.

Och. Still a few miles in her yet.

I may have a husband who can wield a chainsaw, shoot a target at 400 yards, walk hundreds of miles, climb any hill at speed, fly a fast jet in combat, lift heavy stuff, be a supreme alpha male, (insert various other testosteroney activites here) but I still have to be the one who scoops the massive house spider out of the sink with my bare hands and throws it out of the window for him.

More fun and games in the Mum household. Had to break out of my own bedroom at 5.30 am. Husband was trying to get out early without waking me up but couldn’t open the bedroom door. Turns out it had slammed shut in the night due to a breeze from the open windows and dislodged the centre pin in the door knob so it was just swivelling. Cue a bit of head scratching and attempts to phone slumbering teenagers in their bedrooms (always doomed to failure as it would take a chain saw chopping the legs off their beds to wake them up). Whilst husband was contemplating climbing down a line of knotted sheets hung out of the window, I made a serendipitous find of a long forgotten set of mini screwdrivers from a Christmas cracker that I had chucked in a pot on the chest of drawers. After a fiddly 5 minute operation necessitating first locating my glasses, I had removed the doorknob got the door open and reassembled it. I knew my chaotic filing of useless objects would come in handy one day!

I am a 56 year old, professional, highly educated woman whose job entails significant responsibility, decision making and practical skills. I worked my arse off to get the grades for uni. I am computer literate, can plumb in a dishwasher and put up shelves, have brought up two wonderful children, for prolonged periods as a single mother (forces spouse). I delivered our first child in the USA whilst my husband was deployed to Germany in combat for three months during our 2.5 year exchange posting. I passed my postgraduate exams at 41 (after a 4 year ”breeding sabbatical”) whilst back at work part time and husband was working away, simultaneously looking after a 1 year old and a 2 year old. I weathered the storm of senior colleagues’ (mainly the full time working mothers) sniping about my lack of commitment to my job. I now run a full time job, a private business, a house, large garden, 4 dogs, hens, and am still keeping tabs on fledging teenagers. I scrub up ok although everything is rapidly taking on a blancmange like consistency – including my brain.

I frequently get thing wrong but hopefully recognise that and learn.

I look for and usually find something to laugh about every day

All very satisfactory and rewarding, but I have to stop and remind myself sometimes of what I can do.

Menopause has hit me like a sledgehammer.

Anxiety landed on me like an invisibility cloak and pervades everything I do.

Sometimes something as simple as planning a meal and shopping for the ingredients completely floors me.

Some days I think I should feel superhuman but feel unworthy.

Other days I spend most of my time trying not to cry and being furious with myself for being so wet.

I’m putting this out there for women and men of a certain age who recognise this.

For the Women – you are not alone. This is Mother Nature unfairly biting you on the bum. She will leave you be in time.

For the Men – give her a break. She’s not mad. This won’t last forever. Small acts of kindness go a long way.

Just experienced one of those gratifying conversations with IT support which makes one feel comforted and understood.

My home workstation has refused to allow me access for the last couple of days and thrown up an array of inexplicable and imaginative errors, bringing me close to chucking the whole thing out of the window.

There have been a number of attempted fixes initially by me, then remotely by them and eventually involving me crawling under the desk to disconnect and reconnect the tangled spaghetti of cables (and discovering the inevitable variety of unsavoury detritus which has found its way into the nooks and crannies behind it, including mouse droppings).

Eventually the lovely and patient techno nerd on the other end of the phone made his declaration

“It’s properly broken”

I think I’m in love.

Conversation between 2 people in their mid fifties at breakfast.

Him – “Where’s the spare house key?”

Me – “Didn’t you have it last?”

Him – “I thought you had it!”

Thoughtful pause

Him – “We should really have a hiding place for it that only we know”

Longer, thoughtful pause

Him -“Hang on. Didn’t we talk about this before we went on holiday?”

Me – “Oh yes. So we did!”

Very long, slightly horrified, pause

Him – “Any idea where we hid it?”