Mama Bean is feeling a little isolated

Let's just blame it on hormones.

Although, isn't "hormones" just another form of "hysteria"? Which is to say, isn't it just another H-word created by the Patriarchy to explain away the fact that women have emotions by blaming it on the fact that we have a uterus. Only now we know it isn't the Collective Uterus' fault directly, but rather the impact of these nefarious chemical messengers of emotional doom that rise and fall and trip us up with their never-ending cycle of volatility and instability and feeeeeeeeeliiiiiiinnnnggg.

As if men don't have hormones. As if men don't have a higher concentration, and are more innately influenced by the more volatile of the hormones in question. As if someone out there hasn't already dedicated their Womyns' Studies PhD. doctoral thesis to the ways all the Universe's problems can be directly attributed to testosterone. And not my testosterone. Not the Collective Uterus' testosterone. You. know. whose. I. mean.

But this post is not meant to be a feminist screed against patriarchal words that are meaningless. This post is meant to be about how I feel a little alone, and a little down, and that's making my days a little long. Or maybe the long days come first.

Maybe I'm just a little depressed.

Isolation is the hallmark of depressive onset for me. I don't have to feel sad, I would probably rate my overall satisfaction with life fairly high for awhile yet, but I do start to feel cut off from people, and then I convince myself it's because people are purposefully cutting me off, and then I feel like I deserve to be cut off, and then I decide I will embark on self-imposed exile because that will just make everyone happiest. Including me, obviously.

So, let's truck out the old getting-over-myself toolbox and identify triggers and stressors, etc. Papa Bean is back at work full time. I've increased my hours one day a week, so that I'm there over lunch, for a full day, which feels impossibly long and tiring and FULL. We leave Bean in wonderful, loving, fun care four days a week that is nonetheless not us, but someone else (who is wonderful, loving, and fun, but you get my point.) When I'm not at work, Bean is not in care, but PB is at work, and I am alone with the baby. Which is the root of my isolation. And tada! I've solved the mystery, I'm. So. Smart.

And somehow I imagine this is going to be better, let alone manageable with another one? Because that is the plan, to grow by Sprouts and bounds, of course. And I tell myself this will be SO GREAT because they will play with each other! Leaving me free to... do what?

Commit myself to the housework I so diligently complete now?

Pursue my numerous hobbies and talents?

Advance in my super fulfilling, ambition-driven professional life?

Play with pre-adults for even more hours of the day?

Be alone with my thoughts?

Well this isn't a very productive line of inquiry. I just figured if I'm going to wander around in an isolation fog, I might as well bring the gloomy haze to the blog. Because, after all, this is where I fill in the words between, behind and around the status updates. So that's what's going on right now, and as with so many of these episodes before, no doubt it will pass in two weeks.

Hormones. Hysteria. Feelings. Depression. This too shall pass.