Where is the proud, smart, carefree woman I used to be? The woman with smile lines instead of wrinkles, and a sparkle in her eye instead of dark circles underneath? I used to look forward in time and see nothing but a broad road ahead, full of interesting twists and turns and forks; a path blazing with light and possibility. At forty I look back and see the road I travelled and I’m surprised. It’s straight and flat and predictable, and all those forks and twists are dead ends now, choked with weeds and closed to me forever. When I bother to look ahead now, I see a road cloaked in dust. So many have sped ahead of me, finding their paths and blazing their trails that I cannot see my own road anymore.

Instead of energetic and optimistic, I often feel weary and weighted down with responsibility. Instead of turning with interest, I cringe at the sound of my own name being called out. Hearing my name called has failed to be a summons to a fun gathering, an interesting dialogue, an unexpected meeting with an old friend. It is instead another obligation, another need to fill, another responsibility.

I had hoped to feel good and strong at forty. I had hoped to be powerful and optimistic and secure. Instead I find myself at forty feeling bitter and disillusioned. I often feel weak, powerless and without hope for a happy, fulfilling future. I had hoped to make a difference; if not to the world, then at least in some small way. Instead I fear that I have made mistakes, that I have let people down, that I have let myself down.

This isn’t who I wanted to be, this sad, slow and bitter woman. This is who I’ve become but it’s not who I want to be. I want to rise out of adversity and hold my head high with pride again. I want to revel in my own independence and self-sufficiency. I want to give my children all of me because I have it to give, and to spare.

I want to rise out of bitterness and remember — and know — that life is, actually, sweet.

1. Arguing with my daughters. It’s not a feather in one’s cap to win an argument with a six year-old.

2. Yelling at my daughters. See above.

3. Feeling responsible for other people’s emotions.

Three things. Three simple things I resolve to do to improve my life.

You are lovely and caring. You help others and spread out a lot of sympathy. Your life aim maybe is to serve the people. But your weakness is that you forget about yourself, your own needs. All your time is hold back for your friends and family. You are always there for people in trouble. Ready for any emergency. You make a lot of sacrifices just to be a good human. But every woman has her needs, her longings and a destiny. Don’t loose yourself in work or curing other people’s souls. You will have your own problems in your life. Another problem is that you don’t say your opinion when it’s right and important to say it. People trample onto your soul if you are always so kind and lovely and helpful. They will play on you.

Which is basically what I just paid a psychologist $170 to tell me last week. Although admittedly the facebook app used much more inventive language.

So should I just fire the psychologist, save a lot of money and rely on quiz developer Hanna Umfahrer (who is evidently a German high school student) to counsel me? I mean, I do want to be a good human and save the people by curing their souls. But then again, I’m tired of loosing myself and having my soul trampled.

You know, in the end, I think I’ll stick with the gal with the PhD. And we’ll call this little facebook coincidence just that. Okay? 

Oh, and by the way…how’s your soul feeling today?

So this is my right eye. And it’s kinda hard to see in this picture, but it has been running for FIVE DAYS now. Just running, running, running and PINK. Yes, I went to the doctor, and YES I have pink eye (Wow! Fun for the whole family: pink eye is not just for kids anymore!). And yes, I also have a prescription so let’s hope this goobie mess clears up and SOON.Then there are the unbelievable bruises that resulted from my fall down the stairs. But actually I’m quite fortunate that these wild and colourful contusions are the ONLY injury I suffered after taking the last 3 stairs down the METAL SPIRAL staircase at high speed on my ass:

I'll leave you all guessing what body part that is...OK, it's my arm ;o

But that’s not all! We have leaky rheumy eyes, a mosaic of moldy bruises, and then…and THEN:

Here’s where I swiftly change tack and remind you all never to take anything you read on the internet too seriously. Like when you have an IUD and your period is 8 days late, don’t go out and Google “pregnant with IUD”. If you do that, you’ll convince yourself that you are now one of many thousands of women who managed to get pregnant despite their IUD.

You’ll likely miss (or overlook) the legitimate information out there pointing to the fact that the IUD is actually comparable to OR BETTER THAN male sterilization as a means of birth control.

You will – guaranteed – think you are pregnant. And you’ll scour your body for signs of this pregnancy.

In this ill-advised search for pregnancy signs (you can’t just TEST to see if you’re pregnant because it’s after midnight and all the drugstores are closed. of course it’s after midnight! You just spent 7 hours on the internet reading every post in the “I got pregnant using an IUD” thread on the “unbelievable pregnancy stories” message boards.) So, in this ill-advised search, you will scrutinize your breasts for signs of pregnancy. You will find none. But – just to see if anything happens – you will give a squeeze (leaking colostrum being a good sign of pregnancy – very late pregnancy, but nonetheless).

And stuff will come out.

Brownish-green stuff.

Ohhhhhhhmigod. This can NOT be good.

Back to the internet. Googling: “brownish green nipple discharge” … and a big “phew”. It’s not associated with breast cancer. YES! I’m not going to die! (well, not today, and not from wrong-coloured nipple discharge, anyway).

Good thing I remembered to mention the weird nipple discharge to the Doctor when I went to see her about my eye, though, as I am now set up for a bilateral mammogram with ultrasound in order to determine if I have to have a galactogram. And no, I don’t think it has anything to do with Sci-Fi series. And no, I haven’t googled “galactogram”, because my doctor winced when she wrote up the radiology req and apologized when she gave it to me. I think I’ll leave that surprise for the day, don’t you think?

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I did go out the next morning and get a pregnancy test, which was most emphatically negative. 6 hours later I got my period (damn waste of eleven dollars!).

See, I told you it was totally TMI!

Can you believe it? Here I am, 39 years old – supposedly in my prime – and I fall down the stairs? What is with that? I mean, little kids fall downstairs and get boo-boos. Old ladies fall downstairs and get artificial hips.

But noooooo…I fall downstairs and get bruised from head-to-toe and shaken up like a frikkin’ martini!

Check out the bruise on my left arm:

owie!

And that’s taken right after the fall…it hasn’t even had a chance to fully incubate yet. There is a matching bruise on my right arm, my right thumb joint is bruised and swollen (how? not sure), my left foot is swollen and then the prize-winning bruise is on my bum. But I won’t post a picture of that one (although it is magnificent) because I just don’t need pictures of my naked bum on the internet, if you know what I mean!

The staircase in question (kinda helps explain the fall AND the bruises…):

they were wet, too...I had just watered the flowers upstairs on the deck

Anyway, I took homeopathic arnica and put arnica cream on all the bruises. Hopefully that will help a bit with the swelling, and I took an Advil as well (picked up quite a banger of a headache in the aftermath).

Wish me well!