Jan

28

Girl stuff

Remember me whining about my skin a while back? So I’ve been doing the Oil Cleansing Method off and on for a few weeks and overall I like what it does: deep cleans, leaves most of my face feeling soft and glowy, doesn’t cost a million dollars. (Con: since I wash my face in the bath each night, I have to clean the tub more often to fend off an Oily Ring of Ewwww.)

The rashy whatever-it-is on my chin didn’t go away, though, and it seems like it’s slowly but steadily getting worse ever since it first showed up at the beginning of last summer, with spots showing up on my forehead now. I miss having decent skin, you guys. I don’t think I’m quite to the Oozing Leprous stage yet, but I feel wildly self-conscious all the time now. Unattractive.

I finally went back to the dermatologist, who promptly re-prescribed the original antibiotic that gave me headaches (Minocycline), and I took one last night and went UGH MY HEAD.

Goddamnit.

I keep wondering what it is that’s changed. Diet? Makeup? Skincare products? Nothing comes to mind, I’ve tried all sorts of different things and haven’t noticed any kind of pattern. But then last night while googling around for hormones+aging30-somethings+WTFISWRONGWITHMYFACE it finally occurred to me that maybe it’s my birth control?

Could that even be possible? I’ve had an IUD ever since Dylan was born, which is in fact when it was factory-installed, and it seems weird that I’d start having some random side effect 2.5 years afterwards.

Still, maybe she’s born with it . . . maybe it’s Mirena. Now if only there was some sort of Harry Potter spell for having it removed. (Cervixa Disapparition. Expulso No-Feel-Um. Libera Uterineum Bye-Bye.) You’d think I would have learned a thing or two from the process of pursuing pregnancy, but three years ago I wasn’t really thinking ahead to this thing’s exit strategy, and I’m just saying, IT DOESN’T SOUND PLEASANT.

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Jan

27

Indulgent

When will I start taking classes again? I don’t know. I know it’s not the right time, right now. If I had schoolwork looming over my head each day I’d feel like no matter what I was doing, I wasn’t getting enough done. I’d be constantly tempted to stash the kids in front of the TV so I could finish an assignment or read a quick chapter or print a report or whatever it was. I battle that feeling enough as is with my freelance work, I don’t want to tip the scales any more than they already are. God, I don’t even know if the things I was interested in studying are the things I’m still interested in pursuing as a career.

When will I start sitting down and writing something of substance, maybe even the book I’ve long believed/hoped I would write? I don’t know. I produce 70+ billable articles a month, it leaves me with little desire to spend even more time tapping away at the keyboard. Even though I miss creating words for pleasure.

When will we follow through that dream of living in Oregon? Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know. We’re more entrenched than ever right now, no plans to put the house back on the market any time soon. I never really thought we’d still be here for our kids to start school, but this month I sign Riley up for kindergarten. It’ll be fall before we know it.

I feel like I’m in a sort of holding pattern, but I don’t know what change I’m waiting for. For the kids to start school? For more money, more time, more convenience—as though these things are guaranteed? As though I haven’t learned time and time again that success comes from making my own change?

Thing seem cloudy, these days. Not sad; obscured. I don’t know if I should be content with my today, or trying harder to aim into tomorrow.

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