The Journey To The Other Side

~ JodiLea ~ 2 Comments

September is National Menopause Awareness Month…

That goodness it’s nearly over. I feel overly aware myself.  I passed along this awareness to co-workers, Crazy Chicks and my dear readers, so I feel like I did my part. Now I can begin research on October’s subjects of awareness. There’s got to be one more fun…

(If you haven’t had enough – More about menopause at Lifescript.com.)

Journey to the Other SideAs I journey to the other side (of youth and womanhood), I keep fighting what is happening to my body and my mind. The more I fight, the unhappier I become. Inside I feel 30-years old, but now my body is telling me it’s a lot older than that. Not subtlety either.

For example, this week my bad (“bulging” is the term the spine doctor uses) disc screams at me when I chose to change my position slightly. I say “Oh!”, “Yikes!”, “Eek!” very often. Occasionally, a sharp and sudden pain warrants a good old-fashioned “#&*%@!!” or even a “*&^#$$@@!” – yelled out loud at great volume. The sharp pain I expect (because I attempt to move), warrants those words, but mostly they stay in my brain and don’t exit my mouth.

The only thing I want hubby to do to me is massage my neck (it tenses when disc acts up). That and fetch my ice-pack and 800 mg of Ibuprofen when it’s time for them. It’s probably time for a spinal steroid injection again. That is a whole different blog post in itself.

This is not the romantic week-end hubby and I looked forward to all week. Sigh. Contrary to what young people think, it isn’t being married a long time that dulls the desire to have sex.

It’s the pain.

The New Do

~ JodiLea ~ 3 Comments

Thank goodness that the wild child showed up at the hair appointment scheduled by the subdued professional woman. Normally, that would be a scary bad thing, but today it gave me the guts to tell Tina, my talented hair-stylist, that I “really needed  a change, so let’s do it!”. She asked me if I was really sure two more times. Then she began to work her magic…

As we chatted about work, her love life, and our granddaughters, hair was falling all around me. On the floor, into my lap, and even my purse. I always forget to calculate the radius of the hair zone when I stash it. Tina is not very neat when she cuts hair. Creative genius rarely is.

I keep my eyes closed to keep the hairs hitting my face out of my eyes. When she was finished, I took a deep breath and looked in the mirror for the first time. All I could think of was “WOW” Cinderella must have felt like this when her fairy godmother waved her wand and poof!, she was ready to go to the Ball.

Mama's New Do .Even though I had no Ball to go to, I rushed home and put on make-up. Just to go to the grocery store. The clerk told me she loved my hair, both the style and the color. Now I had a third-party confirmation that my hair was no  longer an eye-sore.

I can’t make my ‘do look as gorgeous as it does now.  I do not have one ounce of Tina’s hair Mo-Jo. I will do my best Monday morning to coerce my hair into submission, like Tina did, using a blow-dryer, puffs of hairspray and the curling iron. Then more spray, plus tugging and fluffing. And finally, a lot more spray to finish it off. 

I won’t have time to practice enough to get good at it, anyway.  Tuesday night my hubby returns and will probably shoot me.

And not with the camera.

My Big Fat Hairy Decision

~ JodiLea ~ 4 Comments

I am ashamed to admit this, but I have allowed my hair to look horrid all summer. Camouflaging it with pony-tails, clips, and head-bands. “Why?” Because I could not decide what I was going to do about it, that’s why.

My bleached highlights are way past my scalp, so I can’t say my roots are showing anymore. I could say, “OMG, my gray is showing!” and that would be correct. It would be so cool if gray were the new blonde. But no, and here I have baby fine brown hair, highlighted with gray. You won’t see me in any Vidal Sassoon commercials.

It’s possible you could see me in wig commercials soon, the rate I am losing my hair. It’s totally freaking me out! Why is this happening to me??  I’m not on chemo.. It’s not a symptom of menopause, or diabetes either. My doctor(s) think it’s stress related, so what else is new?. The only thing I am stressing out about is changing my hair-style to minimize the gray and the bald spots.  I’m married to a very handsome man (with a great head of hair) that women (with sexy long hair) flirt with. And here I am contemplating chopping mine short, so the weight does not pull it out.  Hubby dislikes short hair (Duh, all men do). I wonder how he feels about bald ones?

Well, today is the big day. This afternoon I have an appointment with my hairdresser, Tina, and we are going to figure out the best thing to do. Tina has cut, colored, and highlighted my hair since the 80’s. She makes highlights look as if you were born with that hair color. I trust her judgement better than my own. My natural hair color is a dull shade of Dog Poop Brown. Seriously.  Crayola calls it something else, but it’s in that big box of 64 crayons with the crayon sharpener  breaker on the back. Time to get some chores done and stop thinking about it.

Even more hair is falling out as you read this…