Kristine Joy, Writer

I was on my way to physical therapy, sittin’ at a red light, wonderin’ how I landed myself in the middle of a supersonic perimenopausal, the sky is falling, mid-life sh!+show. Call it low progesterone. Call it b!+ch. Reality is up for debate. 

The song, Alright by Darius Rucker, was on the radio. On a higher progesterone day, or one that maybe started with a ban, the song would have served as a catchy tune that would have the non b!+ch in me visibly bopping my head to the beats, and genuinely believing that I have all that I need – a post derecho structurally sound roof over a nice home over my head, a wonderful husband at my side, a happy and healthy 16 year old daughter (Emmie), an “adopted” daughter in Emmie’s best friend (Shaylee), a dog pack consisting of two b!+ches that aren’t b!+ches and a playful younger brother pug that they equally tolerate and love, an extended family and friend network of genuinely good people and the physical ability to come off as a cyborg. Instead, I found the lyrics mere background noise to the overthinkin’ incessant chatter of my clearly mis-wired brain waves. 

I guess I have all that I need when it comes to the basics and beyond – food, shelter, water, money, health, laughter, etc. So, what’s missin’? And/or, what do I have that I don’t need in my life? Let’s hash some of this out and maybe, just maybe, we can find a place of peace for my conscious and subconscious to rest, at least for today, please and thank you.

• I need a computer in which the letter “g” functions when I depress the key instead of havin’ to rely on apostrophes, autocorrect or the copy and paste function.
  • But, I can et by. As can you if you realized that ban was a typo.

• I need for my daughter’s boyfriend (Aidyn; pictured above) to not ask, “Who has a colonoscopy this Thursday?”
  • Apparently, my calendar is shared with my daughter (I think I knew that) and she and the boyfriend downloaded a calendar app that schleps every detail through the network lattice such that he knows, and has known, my every move for several months. 
  • Upon further thought, I suppose that I needed for the boyfriend to ask about my imp(end)ing procedure so that I can (rect)ify the calendar situation. 

• I need for my evidently bored retired cousin-in-law to crop his photo when he sends me a screenshot about (insert innocuous subject matter) from Instagram.
  • I’d really rather not see the obvious and numerous, too hard to miss, porn icons that trail off to the right of his own story icon photo. 

• I needed for the tearful conversation with my husband, caused by a bout of depression, to play out differently:
  • Me: I am not happy with myself. Look how many projects are half done around here and I can’t find the motivation to get off the couch and do anything. 
  • Husband: Hold on, moment of levity here, you’re not exactly great at finishing things.

• After reading the previous need, I need you to know that I’ve completed a crazy number of monstrous things in my life including advanced degrees (please note that this is plural if you didn’t pick up on the bolded s that was my first attempt at emphasis), Ironman races and a plethora of DIY projects including an astronomical 900+ block retaining wall. I have also competed in four sports at the semi-pro level. Call it six sports if you break triathlon down, but only three or five sports if you don’t consider pickleball to be a pro sport.
  • I suppose my husband is right though, IF you choose to dig deeper than I did in our backyard with a shovel, and use a microscope, I didn’t FINISH any of my attempts to go pro as a pro-pro, nor did I put the drill back in its place in the garage after finishing a shelving overhaul project a few weeks ago. 

• I served as a contestant on a reality TV show 18+ months ago. I need for the show to air such that I can know what was reality and what was reality TV!
  • Was there a coalition against me? 
  • Did my roommate deliver me a pizza containing laxative? 
  • Talk about the onset of anxiety. I most definitely do not need that stacked on top of perimenopausal general anxiety.

• I need for this document to recognize perimenopause and pickleball as acknowledged nouns that I spelled correctly.
  • The red underlines make me feel unworthy of my elementary school spelling bee crown.
  • And neither word contains a g so there does not lie the problem! 
  • You may not consider pickleball to be a pro sport, or even a sport, but there’s no denying the noise that the activity has created on a global scale. And by noise, I mean that as a verb and a noun; just ask a tennis player or anyone with a home near the local complex.
  • As for perimenopause, the anxious conspiracy theorist in me, likely heightened by perimenopause itself, believes that the programmers of this code absolutely deny the existence of perimenopause and I have a charged perimenopausal comment on that matter: TSPMO. We have medicine for his aged thing to be erect for hours, but we women are left to fend without such a sword, or even a shield, against a villain with powers and parameters unknown, but certainly far reaching.

• I need for my broken heart syndrome (it’s actually called that) symptoms to subside so that I can get back to being a physical freak of nature.
  • Did you know that an extreme, and I mean sh!+storm supreme extreme, emotional reaction can onset actual physical symptoms that parallel a heart attack and would show on an ECg?

• I need for my place of employment to match retirement at a greater rate than the current outrageously insulting, may as well be none if the rate percent is…wait for it…one.
  • Specific to this fact, it is quite unfortunate that my place of employment is also my husband’s place of employment.

• I need for my husband’s place of employment to respect and honor his 35+ years of commitment when the discussion of a retirement plan is tabled in the near future.
  • He put his career above any and all else. Ultimately, I respect his passion and devotion to his craft but if I’m being honest and then some, that same degree of attentiveness to one’s vocation, may, when added up and absorbed over the course of decades, lead to a singular nuclear explosion that onsets broken heart syndrome in another. 
  • If the retirement match is any indication of how much they value employees beyond their time of service, it is more likely that he finds himself far flung than on the receiving end of a remotely lucrative retirement package.

• I need for my husband to not be making the bed seconds after our teenager departs for school on Monday morning when that exact moment is also hours after I’ve returned from a week away from him.

• I need for my physical therapy appointments to release the tension in my upper body and neck such that I get fewer headaches and am able to move freer in my attempts to be a finisher of things. They do.
  • I need for the touch of my physical therapist to not excite me a bit more than is probably normal in the industry. I don’t think that I should look forward to appointments like my cousin-in-law does his forays on Instagram.
    • I need for my husband making the bed earlier today to not precede the fact that I’m sittin’ at this red light, mind racin’, on my way to an appointment with the physical therapist.

• Since we’re on the topic of men, there are more than a few men in my life that consider me their primary “Phone a Friend” when relationship issues arise. I need for three of these men not to be on the verge of divorce at the same time. And I’d rather not be sliding down a debacle hill myself when called to the plate, which is exceptionally statistically impossible to avoid these days given the frequency of each. And I need for one of these three men to not have once been a husband to me, and the father of our 16 year old (whose boyfriend knows when I’m menstruatin’). 
  • I needed for this conversation to go exactly as it did:
    • Me: I don’t know how you do it; being comfortable with me having a renewed friendship and extensive text exchange with (insert ex-husband’s name). It’s a double standard because I would not be comfortable with you texting (insert his ex-wife’s first name).
    • Husband: I wouldn’t be comfortable texting (insert his ex-wife’s first name) either. 

• The next time around, I need options for President that aren’t politicians. Mark Cuban? 
  • I need for President Trump to not read this and update the Constitution to read that a Cuban OR person whose last name is Cuban cannot serve as President.

• I need for my daughter, a few short months after starting birth control, to not miss curfew because they “fell asleep”. 

• Given my husband’s soon retirement, I need a higher paying job with a higher rate of retirement match, or to become a paid writer (I need you to see the Venmo option below). 

• When wholly consumed by anxiety to the point that I cannot differentiate between the sky and an acorn, I need more than the following inquiry with implied all-inclusive solution, “Have you tried walking?”
  • YES, ACTUALLY, I HAVE! I WALKED 8.2 MILES YESTERDAY ALONE, AND OVER 40 LAST WEEK! AND, AN ACORN, I THINK, DID ACTUALLY FALL ON MY HEAD. AND I’M STILL FULL OF RAGE, BUT NOT ABOUT THE ACORN.

• I need to relax. Anyone have a stash of rass that they’d be up for sharin’?

• I need to not lose a pro pickleball match 21-19 when my opponent made three horrendous line calls within. And when respectfully shaking hands anyway (people tell me I’m too nice), I need for her to not apologize for “not having the best eyes” when I’ve already been informed that her profession is as a police officer. Our small problem here just increased tenfold in magnitude, “The bank robber is definitely the dark haired woman on the left, but could be the blond male next to her.”
  • She went on to place 10th in the tournament. All I got was a 501 mile drive home and it only took 1 mile of that to realize that I wouldn’t drive 500 miles, let alone 500 more, to be the woman who drives a thousand miles to fall down via that cold war.
    • Despite, I still need (and want to) thank her for her services as a police officer!

• I need for my husband to have one iota of belief that retirement is not the same as a death sentence, especially when that retirement picture presumably includes me in it. And assuming life does in fact go on, I need for him to take up a different hobby than the seemingly primary hobby of my cousin-in-law. 

• I need to remain anonymous such that my cousin-in-law’s marriage remains intact (though maybe it shouldn’t?). Or, for my cousin-in-law to realize that he’s got all that he needs; the whole world in his hands seems far grander than his tiny oran. 

• I need a pen name. See cousin-in-law remarks and my call for non-politician Presidential options. Talk about a death sentence in America. 

• I ran a pen name by my husband in which my pen name last name was his legal last name because my legal last name is still my ex-husband’s legal last name. I needed for my husband to not offer a counter suggestion before I could finish saying his two syllable surname. But, his last name does have a g in it, and I’m ettin tired of improvisin’ so let’s chalk it up as him tryin’ to protect me from oof-ups. 

• I need to laugh more than cry about the many facts of life as we know it, facts of my life, spewed above, that happened, are happening or will inevitably happen. This writin’ is my attempt at the former. I needed an outlet for my mood swings other than my husband for fear that he too would be on the verge of divorce. 

• Being honest with myself, I’m am more bored than not day in and out these days. I need something that excites me again (note that I didn’t say someone because I already have one more of those than I need). Perhaps being a writer, rather than the “want-to-be a writer” that I’ve been for a decade plus, will lessen the doldrums of my daily existence?

• Finally, I need you’ll to Venmo me (@KJSculling) so that I can et a new laptop since I’m seemingly on my way as a writer.
  • Scratch that. My husband, always savin’ for a rainy day, thinks my writin’, even if only for my own sunshine, is a ood investment.
    • #happywifehappylife

I appreciate your readership. I need the validation as a new writer (that for the record, also knows how to spell); if there is a like or heart icon for you to depress and it works better than my   key, please pay me in that form, especially if you ignored my wishful thinking Venmo request. 

Sincerely,

K.J. Sculling <– (not my husband’s last name)

P.S. All of the above “needs” are wants and not needs. My life is more than “alright by me”; thank you Darius Rucker for your words of antidepressant wisdom. I truly am okay, but I may need a medical antidepressant to fight off the perimenopause pions runnin’ amok that seem to create nothin’ but mindf*ck. 

P.P.S. To rest your racin’ pryin’ brain, nothin’ actually happened with my physical therapist – prior to the referenced Monday morning, that Monday morning, nor will happen in future Monday to Sunday mornings to come. Further, though not your business, I told my husband about the “crush”; he trusts me 100% to continue seeing my PT, but I, out of self-respect and desire to (over!) protect my marriage decided to move on (from my PT; not my husband). 

P.P.P.S. To my husband, Eric, but said originally by Eric Church, “I love your love the most.” Nothing and no one can or will ever change that.

P.P.P.P.S. As I put the final touches on this bulletin, it is the following Monday morning and our daughter just bounced out the door on her way to school. Perhaps this week will start off with a ban?

P.P.P.P.P.S. It did. All good things come to those who wait.