Being Dr Eeyore

Left with hormone replacement therapy.

I'm now slowly sipping a coffee (despite vowing several times to stop drinking caffeine once I start working from home...) and shopping for clothes I don't need and can't afford. The only thing I haven't done is the sheets because I'm not sure how good Zoom is at blocking out the sound of the dryer...

The boys were great and I can't fault them, but it cost more to have the couch taken away and recycled than what I bought it for.

After an initial "oh god, what have I done?! How is this all going to fit?!" It actually did fit and I was able to relax.

For the first time in 7 years I have a dining table. The pole didn't survive the flood last year, but I just never got around to buying a table...

It's been awhile since I did one of these. Years, perhaps. But here goes... And I'll probably ramble so I get it if no one reads it...

I have started the new job and I have met the most incredible bunch of female patients. I don't know what it is that has attracted these women to our tiny little clinic, but every woman I've seen has been so accomplished and so impressive despite what life has thrown at her and I am just in awe of them

I remember clearly once saying as a medical student "I just want a job where I can wear jeans to work every day." Which is odd. I'm a chubby hourglass, so I am not the figure you think of as rocking jeans. But I have stumbled into a job where I find myself doing exactly that and I am not complaining. I may not look my best, but I've never been so comfortable in my life

My gym anxiety is the lowest it's been in a long-time. It's like the experts are on to something when they talk about exposure therapy... But I go four days a week religiously and after six months at this gym I don't care what anyone thinks. It was a rocky road getting here, let me tell you

Something has happened that I never thought would happen: I am the problem on the dating app. I know. And I'm serious. I just can't quite motivate myself to reply to these men... I don't care. But not in an arrogant way. More so that I've yet to see anything that makes me tempted to risk disrupting my peace. So I have to force myself to be polite and reply. They're getting annoyed with me... But again, I don't really care... I do very much miss sex though, but not enough to roll the dice on replying to a guy who the most he is bringing to the table is "how was your weekend" every single Monday...

I've had ADHD all my life (diagnosed about 9? Or 8? I don't know. I didn't care enough at the time to log it as a core memory). For the most part I have relied on supports and structure to manage it without anyone noticing (except every boss who has raised the issue of me never reading a single email I have ever been sent and complaining about me mostly running on vibes and anxiety...). But perimenopause is doing a number on me. I keep reminding myself there are no RCTs that can prove/confirm that ADHD worsens when oestrogen changes, but f*&^ me I'd argue pretty strongly it's a thing

I am finally getting new furniture!!!! I moved into this tiny shoebox studio during covid 2020 and I purchased the first couch etc I saw that could be delivered overnight. The result was a pretty cool-looking but structurally-compromised piece of crap that J and I broke one night and that has somehow stained the wall with a lovely blue smudge thanks to it's cheap blue dye... But tomorrow, for the first time since I separated from T way back in 2009, I will have real, adult, properly priced, all-my-own couch. I'm so excited to sit on a couch that doesn't give me back pain! Next on my shopping list is a new mattress. But the anxiety that rears it's ugly head just at the thought of picking a new one...

I might be purchasing a holiday apartment down the road from The Rents place. I don't know. Maybe as a place for me to go or maybe to AirBnB. Probably mostly so that I have a place to go as they continue to age and my trips home get more frequent. I could telehealth from there pretty easily while staring out my window at the ocean. It's nothing special, but to highlight the madness that is living in this city, it's twice the size of where I am now and a quarter of the price. And it's beachfront. A five minute walk from Dad's. My parents have been handling all the inspection etc because they learned the last time I purchased property that I do not read the fine print, or pay attention to the details, and I mostly run on vibes (refer to earlier point about ADHD that is mostly really well-hidden). That the repayments on the mortgage + the building corporation fees are less than the rent I pay in the city is just madness

Otherwise, all is much the same in my world. I gym, I knit, I dance, and I chase things that make me feel calm. Regularly I reflect on the fact that I don't recognise the woman I was when I began psychiatry and I definitely don't know that girl who fell for S the ex and his charm... I'm the most content (even though I'm stressed) that I've ever been.

I'm making peace with my body not looking or moving the same. People film me and I just let it go now - I'm going to look ridiculous on the 'gram and there's nothing I can do about it. And that has to be okay because that's how people are these days. They have to film everything. Every moment gets captured to the extent that they miss the whole point of the activity. I can keep fighting it or I can make peace with it and be back out in the world.

Dancing has changed so much. When I started, people wore gym gear to the strip style dance classes. Now, everyone is in the most revealing lingerie and then posting it on the internet. I sound like the cranky old man shaking his fist at the kids on his lawn, I know, but I do wonder what the cost is going to be. Because there's always a cost when the norm changes. There can be improvements, sure, but few things in life don't come with tradeoffs.

So I hide up in the back corner in my gym gear. My phone is turned off and in my bag. And I just dance. Badly. Sure. But it still counts as dancing. Given how long I've been doing this now and how I've already seen the culture and people change so much, I'm sure I'll be around long after the next change and when the latest group of people have lost interest.

Turning it over in my mind since Friday though and with each day it’s feeling more and more like the right choice.

Overall it will be more hours, but I think the new place will give me more flexibility and be better long-term. After three months of that split, if I'm feeling like it's working at the new place I'm going to officially give notice at the old place and set myself up for the long-term.

That's me today. I'd love to say it's because I'm a fashion guru, but the cold reality is that after eleven years of telling myself I need to find someone nearby who does alterations of jeans, I finally did exactly that.