Lest my title mislead you, I’m not here to complain about the sweltering weather this past week. I could, mind you, but I’ve whined vicariously through Facebook friends who apparently hate the heat much more than I do. (Truth be told, I prefer it to the bitter cold of winter…yes, even in my current condition.)No, the “Hot Flashes” I’m experiencing aren’t really hot at all. But they’re no doubt due to similar surges of womanly hormones. That’s my best theory/analogy for the sudden onset, almost daily—sometimes 3-4 times in 24 hours—of an overwhelming urge to cry. It’s irrational and unattributable to anything going on in my life…well, other than the human-making chemical laboratory that is my very pregnant body.
It’s caused me to wonder whether there’s such a thing as pre-partum depression—although, having experienced clinical depression in the past, it doesn’t seem the same. It’s unlike the constant heaviness I associate with that state of being. (Granted, I am constantly heavy these days…heavier and heavier by the minute!) It’s less like a gathering cloud of darkness that won’t go away; it’s more like a black cloud that passes overhead, pummeling my spirit with an unexpected rainstorm—brief, but unpleasant. It does pass. Sunny skies return, and all seems right with the world (at least in my immediate surroundings, to say nothing of the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, or the floodwaters filling the west coast of Sri Lanka, or the ongoing mayhem in Haiti, among many other things wrong with the world).
When the sadness surges (kind of like labor pains, come to think of it), I think: “Huh! Ugh. Oh, dear, oh, no…How weird! I really want to weep.” Sometimes I do actually cry, and sometimes I take a deep breath and steel myself until it goes away. The word “weep” that comes to mind each time triggers thoughts of this song, especially as sung by a local teen talent on our A-Town main stage about a year ago. Having grown up “under a rock,” as my first colleagues accused me (finding me woefully unaware of popular American culture prior to 1986), I was unfamiliar with this Beatles tune until Sebastian’s YouTube version showed up in my Facebook news feed. It’s a good one.
Sebastian turned 17 yesterday. Word has it that he’s planning to audition for American Idol next season. Oh, to be young and optimistic (heck, to be any age and optimistic)—it’s a beautiful thing. I hope Sebastian goes far. And I hope my “hot flashes” go away. I’m optimistic about both.
Image: “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” by Alan Aldridge, as found on http://www.mrmusichead.com/artists/aldridge10.html.
1 comment:
I am familiar with that exact feeling. I used to get that strange, hormonal, weepy feeling every time I nursed my babies for the first few weeks after they were born. Weird...
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