Woke up this morning feeling mostly normal. Sunday was the last time I felt this way.

A big part of the problem this last week was the smoke. Couldn’t breathe, had constant headaches.

Then yesterday, woke up with my jaw hurting because I’d been clenching my teeth all night. Was pretty manic all day. Made it difficult to focus, though when I did focus, I got a lot done. (2400 words yesterday in a little more than an hour and a half.)

I was anxious all day as well. I went to work in the library, and instantly felt overwhelmed by my to do list. Which, honestly, is kind of normal. Except I really started panicking. I have some hard deadlines coming up. How was I going to get it all done?

Then I took a deep breath and forced myself to look at the reality of the situation. There wasn’t too much on my plate. Even if I got sick and had to miss a few days between now and the end of the month, I could easily get it all done.

Stupid hormones. Stupid anxiety.

I am on hormone replacement therapy. I keep telling myself that all of this would be so much worse without the hormones.

When I had a normal cycle, (as opposed to the insanity of this month) I would start taking progesterone 10 days before what was supposed to be the start of my next cycle.

My last cycle ended last week. I shouldn’t start taking progesterone yet.

However, based on my symptoms, I took progesterone yesterday morning. Obviously, it wasn’t enough.

Normally, I take two drops. (It’s a sublingual.) I learned when I first started taking hormones that too much was a really bad thing.

Last night, I took three. After 20 minutes, I relaxed for the first time all day. Then, I slept well. Deep, though with the usual weird dreams. (I was practicing my handstands, and walking on my hands through most of the dream.)

So yeah, normal feeling day today. Not overwhelmed or anxious. Still a touch of a headache if I’m being completely honest, but I figure that will vanish before too long.

Was able to do yoga this morning, not just stretching. Surprised me how little balance I had. The pose I’m doing this month (and I can’t find the name of it) is a balance pose. Could only hold it for the count of 10-15, instead of 20-30.

That’s okay. I’m hoping for at least a couple more normal days in a row, so I can get more words done. I’ve written 10K for the week. Would like to do another 12K this weekend, but we’ll see, as I generally don’t write on Sundays.

One other quick thing – the blogging in the morning continues to help me get to the fiction keyboard. I realized that part of my problem before now was that I was letting other people’s words in.

My husband does email in the morning, as well as checks Facebook, etc.

I’d been doing something similar, looking at my email, reading some blogs.

One of the phrases that my husband really likes is, “How badly do you want it?” This refers to how badly do you want to be a writer, what are you willing to give up in order to do this job full time.

I realized that doesn’t necessarily work for me as an inspirational phrase, not at this time of my life when my body is not cooperating.

Instead, I fell back to an older mantra of mine: My words before anyone else’s.

Blogging is putting my words onto the page in an easy manner, whatever comes to my head. And it’s really different from Morning Pages from the Artist’s Way, which I’ve done in the past.

Morning pages are written by hand and just for me. They’re internal, frequently processing emotions or events, moving from feeling into thought. I don’t write in my journal every day, but I still do it frequently. And usually before I write anything else, including this blog.

Blogging is external, done on a computer, for public consumption. There are a *lot* of things that happen in my life that are too personal, that I would never blog about. However, I will (and do) talk about them in my journal.

Today, I won’t even post this blog until later in the afternoon (or even this evening!) because I don’t want to accidentally get trapped on Facebook or something. Instead, I’ll write this, then pick up the writing computer, and just start back in on the novel.

I’ve already made the decision to have this writing life. I’ve already arranged my life to best suit it. I do want it that badly. Now, I’m just making a tweak.

My words before anyone else’s.

I hope your Friday is going to be lovely, along with the rest of your weekend!

(And yes, written this morning, only posting now, this evening…)