Chuggin' along

After a very long absence, I sat down this morning and decided that I needed to stop putting off my life because I was "too tired." I was recently diagnosed with Hypothyroidism. For those who don't know what this is, I have included the definition below,

"Hypothyroidism is a condition in which the thyroid gland does not make enough thyroid hormone."

Having this auto-immune condition at such a young age, makes for a very interesting marriage. To me, Hypothyroidism only happened to "older women," not women in their late 20's. Needless to say that after many months of going to see different doctors for symptoms that to me just meant I was stressed out, I was given the name of an OB-GYN doctor who finally gave me my diagnosis. At this point, I had quit my job, had multiple emotional breakdowns, inability to get pregnant for over a year, gained at least 20 lbs in a matter of two years, had terribly dry skin, I was cold all day and had night sweats, and I was irritable ALL the time!  You could say that I felt like I was going through menopause.

It has been about three months since my diagnosis, and even though I am still working out the kinks of what all of this means, I am not going to let it stop me. I have changed my diet, and even though I sometimes have my slips, I try to be more gentle with myself. Life isnt about being so hard on yourself. Learn what works, try it out, iron it out and keep chuggin' along.

I'm am trying to let things go, not get so wound up about things, and most of all I am listening to my body and it's needs. So far, so good.

For those recently diagnosed, check out "The first year: Hypothyroidism." This book was really helpful in learning about medications, working out, diet changes and restrictions, emotional health and your support group.

When love dies

Disclaimer: I wrote this entry during a while ago during a time when I was caught in the middle of a marriage that seemed to be falling apart.

It has been quite a while since I have blogged and to be honest I don't know why it has taken me two months to write. These past couple of months have been a little rough and I have had no motivation for anything besides doing the day to day tasks on my to do list.  Now you may be wondering why the title of this is what it is especially for a newlywed.  Well, the truth is that I have been thinking a lot about love lately, especially when it comes to people who have been married, dating or living together for quite some time.
I never envisioned myself as married and the only ideas I had about love were very far away and what I imagined it might be like for people from what I had seen in the movies. For example, when Pablo Neruda talks about it so delicately in his poems and how Sandra Cisneros is so honest and raw when she describes her love affairs with Mexican men. My all time favorite that still makes me cry is the the film "An Affair to Remember." It gets me every single time! These poetic ways to describing love are true and I have to say that for the most part I now understand that raw love, the delicate love and the love that makes you cry.  I now understand the heartfelt songs that are sung with such a sweet bitterness to them, the ones that when you sing them you can almost hear the animal inside of you howl from so much love either because you are so happy you found it or because you lost it.

So how does it go from a place where you know someone so well and love them so deeply that one day it just disappears? How do you have that love-hate intensely passionate, rip your hair out because you are so annoyed and yet you can't stop loving them kind of feeling, to the I never want to see you again feeling? Maybe I have it all messed up and it wasnt love to begin with? I by no means believe that I know it all, and this is why I ask. There is an example I would like to use from my own life. Sometimes there are days when my husband and I are just not communicating well with each other. For some reason we are just not getting along and anything we say to each other gets misunderstood and somehow twisted. One of us is left fighting to clarify or fighting because what the other person said is not what the other heard. Now, here is the one thing that makes the difference, both of us might be angry and somehow we find a way to grab the other person tightly and say "I love you." Not just "I love you," but GRRRRR I LOVE YOU! It is one of the hardest things to do and sometimes one of the hardest things to accept when we just finished yelling at each other. This one thing makes all the difference and maybe this one thing will be one thing to hold us together, I don't know. Now, let me just clarify that my husband and I are very happy together and by no means is this a topic about our relationship, but more or less this is me just trying to figure out what happens to couples who decide in the end that it is best to part ways. I am by no means an advocate for couples to stay together because of there are children or because they need to save face in front of others. However, there are circumstances in which sometimes it might be the best option. What I need to understand is why the love dies. This is a huge question and completely unanswerable because there are so many reasons and so many different opinions, but I would love to hear your thoughts because I need help understanding.