T.S. Eliot Had it All Wrong!

April is the cruelest month...not for me. I came into this world in April and I've always enjoyed my birthday. I still find January and February the most miserable and cruelest of months.

January took three of my grandparents, and several great aunts and uncles.
February 12th took my father (well, that's debatable, haha), my best friend's mother (from MS) and one of my brother's best childhood friends (he shot himself in the chest - it was a tragic, tragic end to a troubled life) and now my best friend's grandmother is dying. She's been in and out of hospitals for the last several weeks. I think she is at home with hospice care now. Since I grew up with Jill, doing so much with her family and her grandma was always there (going to the Rose Parade, the Hollywood Bowl, swimming at her house, going out to eat, spending the night, etc.) I feel close to her grandma. Jill only lives a couple of houses from her grandma's house. BTW, her grandma, Helen, is 87 and is the mother of Jill's mom, who, as I said, died of MS in her mid 50's. My heart broke when Jill's mom Susan died; how awful to lose your child when you're in your 80's. I mean, it's horrific to lose a child at any age; but to have to watch your child suffer for so long...it's cruel.

I am going into 'town' tomorrow (the city I grew up in) after I see my rheumatologist. I just texted (is that a verb now? a real word?) Jill to ask if I could stop by her grandmother's house to, well, basically say goodbye.

Sorry this blog is a downer.

In better news, I already feel tons and tons better from the new medication my shrink has me on. Also, the birth control I'm taking, Yaz, has not only stopped the pesky flying sperm from getting to me, but more importantly, seems to be doing its FDA-approved job in toning down my PMDD (translated: PMS on crack). I feel...normal?? Is this what most women feel close to their periods? I don't feel like throwing myself out the window, or stabbing the furniture or eating the entire contents of the fridge. Tide commercials aren't making me cry hysterically and I'm not having a battle to the death with my sheets, pillows and bed at night. I don't feel like the life force is slowly being sucked out of me; like my uterus has become a vessel of pure, unadulterated despair and my ovaries are no longer whispering "It's useless. End it all now."

I don't know. I don't want to get too excited here. I'm only in my first month with these drugs. It's so, so, so, so, so disturbing to me that I feel I am just essentially a giant petrie dish of out of control chemicals. It makes me feel highly reductionist and nihilistic.

I wonder if there's a pill for existential despair? Hello, calling all pharmaceutical companies...