PMS AND WHY I CAN’T PLAY BASEBALL

I experience what I would like to think of as EXTREME PMS. I experience all of the usual symptoms: cramps, irritability, puffiness, cravings, mind fuzziness and mood swings but I experience them as if I have taken some sort of PMS enhancing drug that amplifies these symptoms. They are, most months, eclipsing.  When I say cramps, what I mean is: the devil has ahold of my uterus in his very fist. When I say irritability, what I mean is: I can hear you chewing in the next room and it makes me want to kill you with a knife. When I say cravings, what I mean is: I talk to ice cream.  When I say puffiness, what I mean is: my boobs hurt so bad I that I have to turn my back to the wind. When I say mind mind fuzziness, what I mean is: I can’t think long enough to adequately bathe a child. When I say mood swings, what I mean is: I lose my ever loving mind. I manufacture scenarios where I am the victim and have the right to press send on hostile emails, facebook posts and texts. I will cry over the imaginary scenario and wonder how I can ever go on. (I have to do this to make my emotional state make sense to me).  My lovely reader, if you are contemplating commenting on how I can lessen these symptoms, don’t bother. I know how. It involves not eating sugar, caffeine or alcohol and you can bite me.

I have been to the Dr. and asked for something to help me not to murder anyone in that 5 day period. He gave me a dissolve-under-your-tongue pill that was supposed to calm me down. When I felt murderous rage I would run to the bathroom, lock the door, shove that pill under my tongue and basically pass out within fifteen minutes. This didn’t end up being good for the small children in my home and I had to find a better way.

Once my kids started to get old enough to wonder if I was just intermittently nuts, I decided I needed to give them a name and a reason for what was happening. When Russell was about 8, he was chewing within ten yards of me and I, in no uncertain terms, told him that I had PMS and that I was going to need him to go chew outside. He responded, “What does PMS mean anyhow, Pretty Mad Syndrome?” “Yes.” I replied. “Yes it does and it happens to girls once a month and lasts for about five days and you need to take it very, very seriously.”

In the last decade, I have developed some coping strategies that don’t involve attempted murder or passing out. I have an ical calendar specifically dedicated to this schedule. I have learned to consult the calendar before sending a potentially confrontational email.

When I feel like crying for three hours, I reach down and tap my boobs and if they are sore, I say to myself, “Oh, this isn’t real.”

My close friends, both male and female, have all been scathed by what my friend Ryan calls, “Shark Week” and they have come to value being aware of my special ical calendar. Once I accidentally published it and sent it to my musical cohorts, instead of the music calendar. I was mortified and they were grateful. My husband is a wise, careful man. 99.9% of the time, he never suggests that this could possibly be the reason that I hate him, or sweet little old ladies or kittens.  We all work around this the best we can and I try my darndest not to take myself seriously for five days a month. There is still collateral damage every now and then and this story is one of my favorite accounts of my personal crazy.

And now to baseball, of course. My husband’s family is all about sports, but really, all about baseball. They watch it, they call each other to talk about it, they play it at family gatherings for fun, they live it, they breathe it and my brother in law has been a Championship winning high school baseball coach for 21 years. My brother-in-law also used to sleep in his uniform with his bat the night before his little league games: a family history fact they are all proud of. I have seen the tree where my father in law wore a spot down smooth with his pitching practice as a boy.  My children have all played baseball and I have done my best to keep up with terms and lingo so I can follow the Patterson baseball convo. Once when my husband was out of town, he was wanting me to text update him on one of Russell’s high school games, as it happened. I sent texts that said, “He just snuck third” and “He just got a twofer” and my husband thinks this is hilarious.  One of his favorite pastimes is to mute a baseball game on TV and have me be the play by play announcer. He does not judge me, he thinks it’s downright adorable that I don’t have a clue about baseball. However, there was this one day, where I didn’t think it was quite so adorable.

We were on tour and were hanging out at my in-laws’ place in Alabama for a few days off. We had all of our kids with us and Melissa, our beloved friend and drummer. We were all super excited to have some down time and the kids wanted to be outside playing baseball. Melissa is super sporty and was outside cavorting with the kids. I was inside in a travel weary vegetative state, still in my jammies at 3:30. (I should have clued into my own self and known there were other reasons I was still in my jammies.)  I was shuffling down the hall when I heard my father-in-law, who was standing at the kitchen window watching the kids play baseball with Melissa, say to my mother-in-law, “Did you see Melissa throw that ball? She can catch it too! Michelle could never catch OR throw a ball! Heh, heh, heh!”. He had a good friendly chuckle at my lack of baseball ability as compared to Melissa’s while I stopped in my tracks. “What??? What does he mean Michelle could never catch that ball?”

And then the downward spiral began. Crazy kicked into full throttle before I had time to check my boobs. I just went with it like it was a waterslide of death. I continued my shuffle to my room while saying to myself, “Why can’t I play baseball? Why, why why???? I will never fit in. I will never be a real Patterson until I can play baseball. How does he even know I can’t play baseball? He’s never even seen me. He probably hates me. He must make fun of me a lot.” (By this time I was crying.) “He probably tells all his friends that his stupid Canadian daughter in law can’t play baseball. They probably all laugh about me when I’m not here. Barry probably does too.” I continued with my inner descent for another ten minutes before Barry walked into the room. He saw me standing in a corner in my jammies, crying weirdly and was brave enough to ask me, “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“It’s …..it’s……your daaaaaaad. I heard him talking about me in the kitchen. He was watching Melisssssssssa play baseballlllll…..”, I sputtered out.

“Yeah, and…?”

“And….and….and….then he said Michellllllle could nnnneverrrrr throwwwww or catch like thaaaaaaaatttttt……and he didn’t know I could hearrrrrr himmmmmm…” I was full on bawling by this time.  I saw the corner of Barry’s mouth twitch as he slowly moved towards me. (I am telling you, this guy is brave.)

“Honey……do you WANT to be good at baseball?” He carefully reached out to put his hands on my arms.

I had to think about my answer. Thinking meant I had to employ reason. I was puzzled to suddenly find reasoning so difficult, since I had so brilliantly uncovered the diabolical-plan-to-make-fun-of-Michelle-because-of-baseball, just a short minute prior. After a considerable pause I was able to string enough sense together to know that if I said yes, I would be hauled outside to actually learn to play the sport of baseball.

“No.” Sniff.

Then both corners of Barry’s mouth went up and he started laughing so hard. And then he bent over at the waist to laugh harder. He knew. And then I knew. This wasn’t real. This was Pretty Mad Syndrome. That’s why I was still in my jammies. That’s why I was suffering from paranoia. That’s why I was crying because I can’t play baseball. Lucky for Barry, on this lone occasion, I started laughing too. I. Was. Ridiculous.

This is what PMS does to me. It makes me ugly cry because there is a sport I never learned. It makes me the victim of things that no one is a victim of. If I rode that slide all the way to the bottom as I often do, my beloved father-in-law might have received a hand-scrawled, tear-stained letter about me being sorry I was never going to be the daughter-in-law he hoped for. I am telling you, I lose my mind.

Ladies, I just know I am not alone. Gentlemen, Barry knows he is not alone. Please, for solidarity’s sake, will you comment for us and tell us the weirdest crazy you have ever experienced due to Pretty Mad Sydrome? Come on, it will make us feel so much better.

PS I have the best father in law on the planet and this will be the first time he will have heard this story. Grandaddy, I know you love me and I know you don’t care if I can play baseball. 🙂