Step-Mom Pride

I went to see my step-son sworn into the Armed Forces yesterday.  Although his father and I aren't yet married, and he's in his late 20s now, we do think of each other in those terms. He is my step-son; I'm his step-mom.

He's going in as an Infantry Officer. After graduating from Basic Training in February, he'll be off to Officer Training, after which he'll be a 2nd Lieutenant (unless he comes first in the class and then he'll be a Captain). The ceremony was surprisingly moving. He was calm, collected and sure of himself as he swore the oath. I couldn't have been more proud had he been my flesh and blood son.

Of course, this is all a part of marrying at my age, isn't it.  You aren't just marrying this wonderful man; he has a family and you need to integrate with them as well. Of course, never having been married, I have no children for my sweetie to integrate with. Just my cats, whom he loves despite all his protestations to the contrary. That aside, any woman who is single after the age of about 30 becomes a part of an extended family with pretty much any man she dates. I haven't had a boyfriend sans kids since I was 28.  That's hard, you know. It takes time to develop a relationship with the children, to gain their trust, to find the balance between being in a semi-parental role and over-stepping the bounds of not being an actual parent to them. These young lives come to care about you, as you come to care about, even love, them. When the unthinkable happens after several years, it's heartbreaking for the loss of the children you've come to love, as much as for the loss of a man you've loved. At least in my sweetie's case, his son was in his early 20s when I met him. Our relationship is based in mutual respect and friendship, as much as anything filial. If he's able to get time away from the military, he will be my sweetie's Best Man. That's pretty special.

You know, when I think about it, my GP first suggested perimenopause to me in 2005; so, six years ago, when I was 41 (maybe I didn't start later than the other women in my family ... hmmmm).  My periods suddenly changed and I was hemorrhaging during the first few days. The physical pressure started building in my gut until I thought I was going to burst; even my lower back started aching. I've never been like that; few cramps, always started and stopped like clockwork - about five days and that was that. Not only did my flow become heavier, but my period began lasting seven days. "Damn!" I said. OK, that's not quite what I said, but you get the drift.

I didn't think it was perimenopause, because this huge change in my menstruation occurred about a month after I started a heavy-duty medication for my arthritis. It goes into the immune-system and stops it from sending out T-cells; the little guys that actively attack viruses and such.  Well, a woman's reproductive system is rife with these cells (called Tumour Necrosis Factor-alpha, or TNF-a) and given the medical system's propensity for not doing studies on how various meds and illnesses affect women, some 20 years after the development of the anti-TNF meds they still don't know how they affect a woman's reproductive cycle.  Anyway, I asked a bunch of other women I know who are also on them, and a fair number of them had also experienced changes in their periods after starting on an anti-TNF med.  There were enough that I figured it was the med. Maybe I was wrong? Maybe it was a combination of the med and perimenopause?

Good grief.

Photo from Dreamstime.com

I want to thank those of you who contacted me after my post on Tuesday. Your messages meant a great deal.  What I didn't say was that over the weekend, due to a confluence of starting a new exercise programme last week and trying to put some bins in the car on Friday, my sweetie is in an acute flair of Sciatica. It snuck up on him.  A twinge on Saturday. A bigger twinge, more like a jolt, on Sunday. Monday morning, he could barely walk and by Tuesday, it had become unbearable.  I've had far too many attacks of Sciatica over the years due to my arthritis, so I know what to do for them.  Let's just say that, well, my sweetie is not the easiest patient to deal with, but we're getting through. On Tuesday, I had to be at work, as usual (especially since I took yesterday off), so my diabetic sweetheart was at home alone, with a dog that needed walking and unable to stand long enough to get food for himself. Suffice to say, I was more than a little worried about him.

Yesterday was the hardest. He had to miss his son's swearing-in. He woke up determined to go, got most of the way to the bathroom and couldn't go any further. His leg almost went out from under him.  He was heart-broken not to go, had tears in his eyes in the morning after phoning to let his son know. But his son knows that his dad wouldn't have missed yesterday unless he'd had no choice. Since I can't carry my sweetie, and he had trouble getting downstairs, let alone dressed in a suit and out to the car, he had no choice. He was in my heart and mind the entire time, as I sat there representing my step-son's entire family.

I was proud of them both yesterday. My step-son for accomplishing his lifelong goal of following in a strong family tradition of service in the military; my sweetie for being wise enough to know when not to push it, no matter how badly he wanted to.

Life's like that, isn't it.