Inside Gigi's World

Anyone else feel like there has been some kind of cosmic shift in the heavens that has thrown their very existence into complete and utter chaos, or am I alone here?

2024 was a year I will surely never forget. There were so many things that happened but the biggest of them all that was the hardest to process was all of the change. By no means was all of that change bad but it was still change and for a neurodivergent person like me, any kind of change can feel like a repeated kick to the crotch…by someone who is wearing metal spikes…that has the force of a thousand men…on steroids…with no respite…not even for one single second.

Sounds like a good time, doesn’t it?

I’m not complaining—even though I can see how this might sound like I am. I just hate change. I like routine…even though I struggle following one. I like structure…even though the most structured thing about me is the ever-flowing cycles of intrusive thoughts and knowing if I open the refrigerator there is a 7.5 chance that it will still be on the door where I left it after the last glass I poured. And I surely do not like surprises…unless it’s the lottery because who the hell wouldn’t want to win the lottery.

I guess where I am going with this is, I had the hope that as December 2024 rounded the corner and the New Year approached, maybe there would be some time for rest and recovery. Just a few moments to breathe, some time to steady myself and catch my balance.

Does anyone remember the year Covid-19 hit? Of course you do, unless you were living underneath a rock or on Mars—both sound significantly superior to the shit show of 2020.

The running joke in our house—at least for me—was “I didn’t have that on my 2020 bingo card.” I’d talk about that damn bingo card all the time.

Pandemic…never expected to see that on my bingo card.

Snow in May…never thought that’s be on the bingo card.

Lockdown and virtual school…was there even a place for that on my bingo card? Didn’t matter, still had to make room for it.

Tiger King for the 2020 bingo card? Carol Baskin?

The ambiguous loss of my Gram to the Covid-19 pandemic. Once day she was in a nursing home. The next day she was gone. We couldn’t be with her. We couldn’t say our goodbyes. Her death happened that fast. She was gone, we knew she was gone but there was never any finality to it.

Face masks.

A toilet paper shortage.

The world as we knew it was different. It would never be the same again. This was our new normal. Even now, five years later, the hauntings of the world before 2020 tease us. We know in a single second the world as we know it now could never be the same again either.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some really beautiful things to come out of 2020 but the takeaway from 2020 was that everything felt unsteady.

The years that followed felt easier. Maybe it’s because our internal systems were still trying to recover, maybe it’s because life navigated a little more smoothly. I am not sure. But it tricked me.

As 2024 reared her imperfections, I was thrown around like a rag doll in an industrial washing machine. So just as I had done on December 31, 2020, on December 31, 2024 I took a deep breath, said a small prayer and braced myself for the unexpected.

11:59 PM came and we watched the ball drop as we eagerly counted down…

10…

9…

8…

7…

6…

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

12:00 AM. January 1st. The world didn’t end. The house was still standing. Aliens did not land. We had bellies full of food. There were laughs. All was well with the world.

HA!

What a fool I was.

What a fool I am.

You see, it isn’t like anything earth-shattering has taken hold (at least not as of yet, knock on wood) but the energy surrounding me feels funky and hazy and heavy and hard to get a handle on life.

The 2025 bingo card has been a mood. And her mood is bitch with a side of crazy.

The 2025 bingo card also has a theme: perimenopause.

Has anyone else out there gone through perimenopause yet?

I didn’t even know perimenopause was a thing. Let me reassure you, it is. What’s worse is it is something I never heard anyone talk about and on the occasions I bring it up I usually get the response, “You’re too young for that.”

My following thoughts are usually, “Yeah. No shit but here I am.”

I feel like my whole world is jenky right now. I feel fucking crazy. There are about thirty personalities living rent free in my head right now. I can’t tell if it is their voices or the intrusive thoughts that are winning out in this raging war but whoever it is, they are pretty manic.

I listen to songs that I love to sing out loud in the car like no one is watching…and I cry. Their moods are also not discriminatory. Have you ever sobbed over “Big Booty Hoes” ? No? Me either, not until recently. What about medium-booty hoes? Small-booty hoes? And what about those that are not hoes?

I watch shows that I have seen a million times…and I cry. Like why did Walt have to go down like that? He didn’t need to die. He was just a man trying to make money for his family.

I cannot figure out for the life of me why all of the blankets in the house feel so itchy all of a sudden. There is not one blanket in the house that doesn’t feel like bug bites on eczema that is covered in hot wool.

I haven’t slept through the whole night in months now. 3 ‘o’ clock in the morning rolls around and my mind says its time to be wide awake and think of all of the impending doom that will consume me in the next 24 hours…48 hours…the next week…the next month…I read recently that perimenopause can last up to ten years…ten years! I don’t think I can handle the next five minutes, never mind the next ten years.

The rage. The rage. Oh my god…the rage. The road rage and shopping cart rage that consumes me at any given moment is something I cannot even put into words. My middle finger and swear bank hasn’t gotten this much exercise in…well, probably my whole life. I’m hopping on the highway and a truck cuts me off…a person cuts me off to drive 3 fucking miles in a 45 mile per hour zone…there goes my horn, the window goes down and that middle finger is flying around like a ten-foot flag blowing in the wind. Someone’s poor grandmother is walking down the bread isle to our local grocery store and she’s moving a little too slow for me and I’m asking her to speed the fuck up. What’s worse, that same grandmother is looking at me with those pitiful eyes, all knowing just by looking at me that I am a woman of a certain age and I may never feel like myself again.

You ever have a melt down over there being no milk in the fridge to go with your cereal because it is the only thing in the house that doesn’t taste weird now and no one told you, so now you’re crying and snots are running into your mouth and your yelling at everyone else in the house for not telling you there was no milk and now you feel bad because you have no idea what has entered your body and taken over your soul? Welp, don’t you judge me. There is a first time for everything.

How many times in the last ten minutes have you forgotten a word that you use every day of your life like dinner, toilet, tired and…ummmmmm.

I can’t remember 3 minutes ago or what I came into the kitchen for and wait, this isn’t even the kitchen. I’m in the…ummmmmm.

And goddamn it, if I could remember to charge at least one of the two pairs of headphones I own, that’d be great.

I could heat the whole house with one of my hot flashes…maybe even possibly boil water.

And here I am, crying all over again.

I feel like I am myself but also I feel like a complete stranger to myself right now. Where I was once so self assured and confident is now filled with anxiety and self doubt. I feel like I am losing my mind almost every single moment of the day and I fear I may never find it again.

I don’t like to gamble. I feel defeated if I don’t win my $2.00 back on my lottery ticket. It’s one kind of vibe to play bingo with the old ladies in the church community room but it feels completely different when you realize you are turning into one of those ladies. It’s like you’re being initiated into some kind of cult that you eventually knew you’d have to join but thought you’d have more time to get there.

Drink the kool-aid, Ang. Drink the kool-aid.

Why write about this? People freak out when you say the word “menstruation”, they fucking stroke out when you say anything about hormones, feelings and….eeeekkkk…THE CHANGE. Well, this is my life right now. This is my 2025 bingo card. I am praying if anyone in the great divine has any kind of sympathy or empathy perimenopause will not last ten years. But people also say whoever created woman—unless you believe in science like some people, it’s me, I am one of them—was a man so if this is true then clearly he has no sense of humor or empathy or maybe he does but his humor really isn’t funny at all. I digress, this is my life, this is what I know. If I can’t write about my own struggles as candidly as I would write about the weather than what kind of writer would I be?

And so to my fellow readers losing at the game of bingo, may your heart feel lite in knowing you aren’t gong through it alone and that your dignity stays much more intact that what mine has.