I guess we can start with some positives.
my health
So I am fifty now, which is absolutely bananas. It is bananas not just because of how quickly the last couple of decades have flown by, but because I don’t feel anywhere near it. I have felt thirty-two since I was thirty-two. The needle hasn’t budged. I feel mentally thirty-two and I feel physically thirty-two. I can’t relate to the jokes that people my age make about aches and pains. I can’t relate to the memes. I don’t get stiff, I don’t have trouble getting up from the floor, I don’t have trouble breaking into a run to catch a green light, and I don’t have trouble staying awake until 3am when I want to. I still go dancing, and when I go, I dance nonstop for hours. I suppose I’m in peri menopause, because my periods have just started to become irregular—but whatever other symptoms come with that, I’m not experiencing. My sex drive is still very much there, though I am perfectly content tending to that myself (with great creativity & gusto I might add). On the one hand I don’t want to jinx myself, but on the other I suspect that this will be another one of my weird health quirks. I’ll probably not have any of the usual menopause complaints; I’ll just randomly get hit with another huge chronic condition at some point.
Last year I got serious about eating healthy. Every single meal I eat now is homemade, organic, and hot. I eat the same things almost every day, week after week. When I self-diagnosed as autistic (don’t worry, we’ll get into it), I leaned into it, hard. That included abandoning a forced interest in cooking a huge variety of foods for the sake of cooking a huge variety of foods. The good news is, the things I eat are pretty healthy.
Breakfast every day is spinach, one egg yolk, and buttered sourdough toast. Lunch is either steamed broccoli & carrots and mashed potatoes, or Brussels sprouts and mashed potatoes—or sweet potato by itself. Dinner is angel hair pasta with homemade sauce (tomato, heavy onion & garlic, fresh herbs). Snacks are fruit or nuts, or, if I’m stressed, the processed garbage we stock at work. Most weekends, I treat myself to salmon sashimi. Most weekends I also make pancakes at some point. If you’re keeping track, that means every single day I eat bread, potatoes, and pasta. Twenty-five year old me would never believe it. Carbs central here. But I’m getting vegetables every single day, too.
I sleep between nine and ten hours a night. I work out in the mornings (stretching, weights, my yoga-lates nonsense, then a 30-minute treadmill run). I aim for every day, but I usually end up hitting 4 or 5 days a week. I weigh what I did in high school: 113 pounds. I absolutely love my body. Not everything about my life is great, but that is a thing I do have. I feel incredible in my own skin. I feel incredible in my clothes. I can’t stop aging, but it is a huge source of self-esteem and pride that I remain as fit as I do.
Of course, none of this (the healthy eating, consistent fitness, and adequate sleep) would be possible if I was in a relationship. That is one reason I will never, ever, ever, ever be in a relationship again (don’t worry, we’ll get into it).
I never get sick. I don’t get colds or the flu, ever. About six weeks ago I walked 40 minutes home from the club at 3am, in heavily ripped jeans, in 7 degrees. Couldn’t even feel my legs when I got home. Didn’t get sick. I don’t get headaches or allergies. I don’t even get cramps.
I do, however, have my roster of forever conditions: hypothyroidism, chronic idiopathic urticaria (last breakout was years ago), and tinnitus (I’ve no way of knowing how bad my case of it is, but if I had to guess I’d say 6.5/7 out of 10). The tinnitus deserves its own post, since I know so many people suffer from it but don’t really talk about it. I absolutely have to wear glasses to read or be at the computer. That’s a bummer, but standard I guess. Oh and I just had the first all-clear from the dentist in years, so yay on that.
All in all, I feel amazing, physically speaking.
social support system
I like to say that my social support system is small but mighty. In fact it is tiny but mighty.
A thing I went through after I moved to Chicago that I have been back and forth about disclosing, is that I told a lot of people to fuck all the way off to Jupiter, within about a year and a half of moving here. And by that I mean I either ghosted them or told them off and then ghosted them.
I have been back and forth about disclosing any of this, because it took me a long time to process and get perspective & clarity. For a long time I felt very sad and very ashamed, like I had done something wrong. Like I had deserved the treatment I got from people who I—well, I adored my friends. I just fucking adored them. You know. You read about it for years.
Long story short: people were just not available to me when I needed them. They were super duper available for their social media. They were super duper available to be on their phones instead of interacting with me. They had been super duper ready to sponge up my support and love when they were going through loss or change or heartache. But they had fuck-all for me, when it was my turn.
New city, halfway across the country. New job in a new industry. Then another new job in another new industry. Didn’t know a soul here. No family. All of this, they knew. And I was very vocal and very clear and very humble in asking for support. Really basic shit, too, like, “Do you think that instead of squeezing me in while you’re driving, you could set aside time to call when you can really focus on our conversation?” Or, in a couple of cases, it was realizing straight male friends had only had use for me when they thought there was a chance I’d fuck them.
So it was off to Jupiter with several people, and while it nearly killed me, it had to be done.
Cut to now, though. I am down to three people I can count on, but they are ride or die. Like, legitimately ride or die. They take me as I am. They check in. They carve out time. They are present when we talk. Just their existence in the world bolsters me. They are enough. I will share more at some point.
my jerb
I’m never going to talk about my job. Not the industry, not my role, not my responsibilities—nothing. That is because my job is the least interesting thing about me. Seriously. It’s so boring. My thoughts, my opinions, the shit I get up to on the weekends—those are all much, much more interesting than my job.
But I will say that I was incredibly, insanely lucky to get it. I didn’t even go after it. It was just offered to me, because some people liked me and thought I seemed competent and cool.
I work under almost exclusively women, all the way up. Compensation is great. The office is a twenty-minute walk from my place. Overtime is never demanded, but it is routinely offered. No dress code—I literally wear sweats or yoga pants at least one day a week. There are bonuses and benefits, perks and swag galore. I have the most adorably decorated cubicle you can imagine, in a high rise office overlooking the river. We only WFH one day a week—but to me, that is a plus. I hate working from home. (I mean, I like it for one day, since it’s a chance to grab a little extra time for errands and housework. But any more than that I would not want.)
Those are three indisputable positives. They felt good to write.