Finale

One might think that I had given up on this blog since I haven't written in over three months (really? a quarter of a year passes by that quickly?) but I have written countless entries - albeit in my own mind, usually in the shower where all my creative ideas seemed to be awakened, or in the car when I am not otherwise amused by the idiotic driving of the cars around me.


Thus, this entry serves as the finale - not of the blog itself, but certainly of 2011. However, as the ever profound Semisonic croons, "every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." I am hopeful that for all the questions that 2011 raised, 2012 brings an answer.

Fortunately, I am much further on my journey than I was three months ago in many ways. I have had more blood tests than my insurance company would like to see. I have had my first ultrasound (and let me tell you - there is something quite unusual about going into a dimly lit room with a woman holding a wand about the size of a turkey baster, knowing exactly where that thing is going to go... You feel this incredibly odd juxtaposition of expecting Moon River & wine with seeing your insides in black and white up on a little TV screen). I am completely, blissfully normal (ha - I wonder what J. thinks of this notion) yet my doctors have labeled me with the letters I suspected all along: PCOS. As grateful as I am for this diagnosis, I know that it is not the best fit. It is necessary for the red tape, the people that need to have something validating all these tests, but it is not a perfect diagnosis.

As Elaine and Jerry once said, maybe I'm an enigma ("a mystery wrapped in a riddle... or a Twinkie..."). I like that much better than the truth - that they simply do not know. I walked away from the series of appointments with a script for a medication, if I choose to take that next step. That bridge will have to be crossed in 2012. For now, it seems most appropriate to end 2011 with ellipses, for this journey has not reached its finale, only a crossroads...

Fate

I have found that there are many iconic moments in life - graduations, marriages, births, deaths, etc... However, for some reason, I seem to collect a number of iconic moments that are on a much smaller scale, and yet still burned into my memory. Some of them are rather bizarre, like the fact that I can still recall the date when one of my high school boyfriends and my friend "Janis" broke down on the interstate at 1 in the morning (and then I subsequently got locked out of my parents' house!) or the fact that I can recall trying to sync up the song "Family Affair" on my computer, as well as my housemate, "Marcia's" so that we could have virtual "surround sound" as we got ready to go out one night. Oh, the crazy memories!

Tonight, I was reminded of another one of these memories. It was ten years ago to the day (today is/was my birthday eve) - and I can even tell you what I was wearing! I remember that I had a meeting on campus (I think it was at the Roost, for any Etowners reading this) and I was walking across campus on a beautiful, star-filled night. I opted to cross the Dell (for those non-Etowners, the Dell is, as the song describes, a giant lawn covering about 1/3 of campus) rather than taking the gravel path. As I walked and looked up at the night sky, I felt an incredible peace come over me. I knew I was going home to my favorite place (our Sauder House) full of some of my favorite people, as it was the first semester that I was living the girls who would grow to become my sister-friends. I loved my college, I loved my classes. Two weeks prior, the whole world had been brought to its knees during the 9/11 attacks and yet my life felt incredibly buoyant and hopeful. Later, I would learn about Maslow and his "peak experiences" and I can only describe this moment as one (as you can probably tell by this entry, I cannot even fully describe it). I remember thinking of how many things I had to look forward to in life - but how content I was in the moment. It didn't matter that I had papers to write, that I was single, or that I didn't get to spend my birthday with my mother for the first time ever. I felt incredibly blessed in life; that "my cup runneth over." I truly felt like that was the exact place I was supposed to be - and in hindsight, I was absolutely correct.

Tonight, this memory returned as J. and I drove home from our day in Lancaster County. Perhaps it was the Switchfoot song on the radio (how many times did "Only Hope" play in our house?!), combined with the Rhino fries in my belly, but I couldn't help but wax nostalgia about Elizabethtown. As I stared up at the stars (finally! a clear sky amid all these days of ark building), that night ten years ago came flooding back to me. Ten years. A decade. Nearly 1/3 of my life has passed since then. Someone once told me that my 20s would be the busiest chapter of my life and they certainly were correct. So many life changes have happened between then and now. Yet, I found myself comforted in the peace and serenity that I had found on that night walk. I didn't know the direction that my life would be heading in, but I was trusting of the process. The past few weeks/months, I have been ruminating so much on what is out of control in my life instead of remembering to just offer it up as I used to be able to do so effortlessly. Tonight served as a gentle reminder that life doesn't have to be perfect as you envisioned it to be for it to be perfect as it needs to be. It is incredible when the 19-year-old version of myself can continue to teach the "nearly" 29-year-old version of myself. I am even more blessed than I was a decade ago and my cup now needs to be a basin (or at least one of those king size Slurpee cups I saw at Shady Maples today!) to hold all the love and gratitude I have in life.

Coincidentally, I found a penny in Rockwell's tonight. My mother always tells me that whenever we find a penny on the ground that God put it there to let us know that we are exactly where we should be in life. Somehow I find great comfort in this thought.

So, with 5 minutes to spare in my 28th year, I toast to the wisdom that I have gained, the wisdom I have yet to gain, and the serenity that is always within my grasp if I embrace it (and an extra toast to those extra-special Etown sister-friends who I'm thinking of tonight!).

Four Letters... Begins with "P"

Have you ever stumbled across something - a quote, a book, a person - that seemed to unlock something in your mind? I've had this experience with a number of books (mostly Paulo Coelho's books which I really should reread, now that I'm thinking about it) and certainly with a number of people who crossed my life at crucial intersections (I can't think of many things better than the discovery of a new friend, a person that you look at and say, "Wait. You, too?").

So, after a few months of floating in the darkness of women's health mysteries, it was like finding a life preserver in the middle of an ocean when I stumbled across a WebMD article about PCOS - PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome. Like Gru from Despicable Me, I felt like saying, "Lightbulb!" Why didn't I think of this sooner? A decade ago, my family physician had thrown this acronym out casually while I was battling some cystic acne. However, I think I tended to ignore it because (a) he said this right after suggesting I go on Accutane, which I immediately refused to do and, thus, most likely tuned the rest of his monologue out; (b) he didn't seem overly concerned as I wasn't "obese"; and (c) I was 18 years old. C'mon. All I cared about was getting my acne under control for cosmetic reasons. So, I followed the advice of my dermatologist, got on some good ol' fashioned BCP ("birth control pills" for those who don't follow all the acronyms that fertility bloggers use on a regular basis - ha!) and never looked back.

I lived the next ten years in a joyous, hormone-balanced happy place. PMS? Thought it was something women made up when they couldn't deal with normal life. Weight gain? I battled the usual 5 - 10 pounds that I seem genetically predisposed to (Thanks, Mom, for those birthin' hips....Now why couldn't I get your ovaries?!) but as long as I was fairly conscious of my diet and exercised, I was just fine. Acne? I'd get my one good one a month. I could live with that. Menstrual cycles? I could set my clock by it. Life was grand.

And then, because you can't really conceive on them (hence the birth CONTROL title), I went off. Literally. Over the past six months, I have become an emotional roller coaster. The Great Bear at Hershey should have my image plastered on the front. My husband probably needs a support group. I have cried more in the past six months than I truly have cried in all my other nearly 30 years added together (and that even includes those teenage angst years when "My So-Called Life" was like an autobiography). Take today for example. Granted today is an emotional day for all Americans, but I have cried now at five different TV commercials airing between all the various sports that have been on our TV. If I were a man, surely my "man card" would be revoked for tears during not just one game, but several games.

Not only has my mind decided to start playing "light switch" with my moods (on/off/on/off/on/off, etc...), but my body has started to be taken over by some other being. Teenage acne? Back in full force (in the great irony of life, I can't take anything topical because it's all unhealthy if one should become pregnant). I've been getting exceptionally weak if I don't eat on a regular basis. Any weight gain? Thank God for lying, well-meaning friends and husbands but the scale doesn't lie (and neither do the pants!). Inexplicable, significant weight gain. I should start wearing stretchy pants to work, with a t-shirt indicating that I'm training for Sumo wrestling (so many of my friends are training for marathons/half-marathons, it only seems logical that I, too, should train for something!). And cycles? Uh, there is no rhythm to mine. My cycle is now like the White guy on the dance floor, thinking that he can keep up only to be always a beat off (or in my case, many beats off).

So, after thinking all these things were separate occurrences, I realized that they might all be different manifestations of the same beast: PCOS. It all suddenly makes great sense. I purchase one book and it's written for me; all these symptoms are calling my name. For years, I've been jokingly saying something is wrong with my hypothalamus (since I am always cold and always hungry). I might have been on to something all along! In classic Stef-nerd/OCPD-style, I don't just settle for one book about PCOS. I end up buying about ten books about it! Education is power, right? (I've always been a bigger fan of this rather than its cousin, "Ignorance is bliss.")

Of course, I haven't been officially diagnosed with it, as J. reminds me ("Uh, have you been going to night school to become a doctor recently?" he asks me). I have an appointment in October (Don't these doctor's offices understand that the clock is ticking with each passing day? Is there no sense of urgency? Okay, so perhaps they have a lot of frantic women calling them). Until then, I will become an educated patient on this "most-likely-but-not-guaranteed-to-be-mine" syndrome. Heaven help my Physician's Assistant when I see her. I might need to bring her some vodka. :P

Fierce

I confess that unlike many other people I know, specifically women, I do not watch any of the award ceremonies. I find them long, dull events full of narcissistic people with a smattering of beautiful dresses (that I can look up online the next morning). However, I love me some Perez Hilton. Literally, I read his blog nearly every morning while having my breakfast. Thus, it was Monday morning - not Sunday night, like the rest of the world - that I found out that Beyonce was with child.

Now, let me qualify that I often feel that Beyonce should be a close friend of mine. I feel like I have grown up with her, dancing to "Jumpin', Jumpin'" with high school friends, celebrating "Independent Women Part I" when I went off to college. Beyonce helped me to embrace my "Bootyilicious" nature, while I later went clubbing to "Check on It" and put my hands up to "Single Ladies"  before getting married.

And let's not forget all that I have in common with Beyonce: We were both born in September, albeit a year apart from each other. She had two girlfriends in a singing group in her teen years; I had four best friends who would sing into wooden spoons in my teen years. She collaborated with Lady Gaga. My first name is the same (almost) as Lady Gaga's. She started a clothing line. I like to wear clothes (although I have never purchased any of hers). She is married to a very wealthy, ex-drug dealing rapper. I am married to a very frugal white boy who grew up in the middle of a cornfield. When will the similarities end? :)

Regardless, I do feel like Beyonce is part of my life experiences in a way that only certain celebrities that have become iconic in your life are able to be. Perhaps to my generation of girls, she is the Carole King or the Barbra Streisand (arguably probably not to either of their exact levels but an example of what true talent, feminine power, and inspiration can converge to do). I was equally surprised and excited to hear their very public announcement on Monday morning. Wasn't this the same woman I watched command the stage at Oprah's farewell show back in May, looking amazing? (If she truly is five months pregnant as I hear reported and the Oprah show was filmed in May, then she was in her first trimester. Girl definitely wasn't looking like she had morning sickness!) She has certainly inspired me to get back on that treadmill. Maybe if I can get in better shape (Ha! I actually almost wrote, "into shape like she is..." until I realized that I have to be grounded somewhat in reality!), it might just do the trick.

So... in honor of Sasha Fierce and soon-to-be Baby Z, back to the treadmill I go tomorrow!

Felicitate

Felicitate (v. t.) To express joy or pleasure to; to wish felicity to; to call or consider (one's self) happy; to congratulate.

I tend not to believe too much in the idea of random coincidences, so when I came across an old quote I cherished not once but twice this week, I found myself pausing and giving it some reflection.

I beg you... to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything, live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. (Rainer Maria Rilke) 

I can recall when I first fell in love with this quote. It was during my graduate years, before I met J. I, like so many single gals out there in their 20s, was struggling with the all-too-frequent string of broken hearts, bad first dates, and engagements of my all-too-taken friends. I simply could not figure out why such a fabulous person like myself could still be single, when there were so many miserable, terrible people out there in relationships (oh, c'mon.... like you haven't thought that just once in your life?). I remember spending an entire summer, intentionally single, trying to discover some inner truths about myself and what I wanted in a partner (I think some of my friends probably still have that laundry list somewhere tucked away). In ways that I now realize are completely illogical, I remember thinking that whatever I went through in life would be tempered by the fact that I would some day have a person to call my own. I am ashamed to admit that I recall listening to a friend with a serious life concern at the time and thinking, "well, at least you have your husband." God, Gram would be so proud of me for having such archaic, anti-feminist thoughts!


I can now look back at the time 5+ years ago (eek!) and realize that I was "living my way to the answers" in my life. I had to experience and embrace that time in my life to become a complete, whole, healthy person before I met J. And I was partially right - it is nice to have a life partner, someone on whom to rely upon when times get tough. However, I was wholeheartedly wrong in thinking that a relationship would be a life panacea (and for those single gals still out there, being in a relationship adds a whole different set of problems - like tonight's battle over the TV. Seriously, the only way I know that J. fell asleep in his chair right now is because I am able to watch TV commercials. Otherwise, we would have hit at least five channels in the past 30 seconds).


As much as this quote reminded me to settle in and enjoy the "delicious ambiguity" (to quote from my all-time favorite quote by Gilda Radner) of my life during that chapter half a decade ago, this week Fate sent it again as a reminder to enjoy this stage, as well. As much as the frustration and the disappointment and the "what ifs" can immobilize a person, the hope and the unknowing can also spur us forward - living our lives as part of the journey rather than just seeing it a means to an end. Just like finding a husband didn't end all my problems (don't tell J. this!), having a family won't bring perfection. Life is about enjoying the here and now fully and embracing the happiness, to felicitate. I once knew this lesson. It's time that I was gently reminded of it.

The F Word

Some of the best words begin with the letter "f." Take facula which is a bright spot on the sun's surface or facundity which is a fancy way of saying eloquence. Then, of course, there is fandango which is not only my preferred movie website, but also a Spanish dance (who knew?). Let's not forget a Francophile who should not be friends with someone who is a Francophobe. Who really cares that much about the French anyway? My husband would be considered a fructuary, a person who enjoys eating the fruit of just about anything while I might be considered by some to be a flibbertigibbet (a person who is seen as flighty or gossipy [hanging my head in shame]). Then of course there are all those other f words that can be used in all sorts of ways....

But there is a bigger f-word in my life presently: fertility. There. I said it. It seems to be the elephant in the room when you reach a certain age, you've been married a certain length of time, and there seems to be no other explanation for why your guest room hasn't been yet converted to a nursery. Random strangers will ask you about your family planning intentions, while close friends seem to tiptoe carefully around the subject. Why is it such a taboo subject? Certainly, it's one of the most personal and biggest decisions in one's life - but so was choosing a college to attend, getting married, getting that horrible perm back in middle school, agreeing to go to the winter formal with the pity date, drinking absinthe in Germany, etc...  (hmm... maybe our friends' judgments are a bit suspicious now that I think about it.... ). Our friends aided us through those uncharted waters. Why is this such a private matter?

I doubt many things in life, but there are four truths that I believe eternally:
1. that the mind, body, and spirit are linked more strongly than I could have ever believed. This is why, as we begin to try to have a family, I think it's so important that my body be as healthy as it can be - from the inside out. I know that in the past, I have often focused on one aspect of myself often to neglect another. So for now, I hope to nurture my mind, my psyche, my soul, and my body as much as I can. Many of you know I have begun acupuncture in the past few weeks. I hope to start practicing yoga and meditation regularly, in addition to healthy diet and exercise that I have been maintaining.
2. that the power of writing can be a very soothing balm, serving to organize the chaos of my mind and make sense of the garbled emotions and thoughts that often pervade my mind throughout the day
3. that anything can be tackled better with a sense of humor. Without a doubt, this is one thing that I have learned through my relationship with Jason. No matter how serious or trivial the problem is, when we are able to laugh about it, we get through it. If I can keep this perspective throughout, I know that it will only add to #1's truth. The Crouse House is never without laughter. We have found ways to laugh about even this journey already (although they are probably too politically incorrect to repeat here! Suffice to say, J. said them, not me!). 
4. that the female friendships I have in my life are essential to my life energy. While I am blessed to have found a spouse who is a partner in every way I could ever have hoped, there is simply a line in the world where men cannot cross. Men cannot relate to a sense that some gigantic clock is sitting somewhere, playing Humpty Dumpty with our eggs. Men cannot understand the changes a woman's body goes through throughout her cycle (let alone her life). Heck, my husband cannot figure out how to separate the laundry (or apparently how to clean a bathroom, but that's a whole different type of blog!). I know my girlfriends will be the amazing women that will champion me through the inevitable trials and tribulations ahead. Women have a way of understanding what needs to be said, done, and prayed for - and doing it (well, except for the woman I met recently who reminded me, without much tact, that I need to "remember, dear, that you've already passed your prime for having children a few years ago." Thanks, lady. I owe you one!) :)

So, as with everything in life, I hope you are able to join me on this journey as I go along the twisted path of the "f word." I know it will test my faith and my fortitude but I know that with the grace and kindness of some special women in my life (and some good silent, belly laughs along the way), it will be that much easier. Thanks for coming along!