We're not in Kansas Anymore, Toto.

What to expect when you're expecting to turn 40.

File under: Things they never told me; Things we don't discuss around women of childbearing years.

(Warning: This is not a shiny, happy teaching/education/funny kid stories, share with the guys kind of post. So you can click away now, dad.)

Back in November, I stopped taking my birth control pills. I don't need them anymore for, you know, birth control (see also: husband, snipped), so I guess I was mainly hanging on to them for habit's sake. I always felt like I needed to have that control over my hormones, to force my body to do what I wanted every 28 days. Without that, what my body really wanted to do was have no set cycle schedule and create cysts on my ovaries which grow and explode and HURT, just for fun. In short, the pill kept my body from trying to kill me, and it allowed me to know with certainty that it would be okay to wear white pants.

I found this useful for many years.

But this fall, I decided enough is enough. So I quit taking it.

Meanwhile, and mostly unrelated, the tremors in my hands have been getting worse. My handwriting is horrible, especially if I have to go slowly, or trace something. Not only can I not hold a camera or decorate cookies, I can't tweeze my own eyebrows. I can barely put on makeup, and to do that I have to be leaning over the sink looking into a stationary mirror, I can't hold a compact mirror with one hand and apply mascara with the other. On most days, this is simply annoying. It is also part of the excuse I use for putting on my makeup while driving in the car, at red lights. Mostly.

But back to December. One morning I went into the urgent care clinic at my doctor's office thinking I had a UTI. This is not abnormal, I get bladder infections 2-4 times per year. Who knows why. But this time, I saw a different doctor in the rotation, one I had never seen. One who apparently read my chart, unlike anyone else in that office recently. And so she knocked and came into the little room and sat down and said, "You don't have a bladder infection."

"Oh, yes I do," I countered, because I am That Patient, The One Who Always Knows Better.

"No, actually you don't," she said. "And you haven't really had one since 2009."

"No," I'm still in charge of this conversation, lady. "I get them a couple of times a year. I know what it feels like. I just need an antibiotic."

She cleared her throat.

"Let me be clear. You do not have a UTI. You haven't had one in two years. I've looked through your chart. The last 5 times you've come in here and peed in a cup, it hasn't actually grown any bacteria. So there's no infection." (note: they do a quick pH dip in the office, and then they send it off for a five day culture. Apparently nobody was following up.)

Shut. The. Front. Door.

And so she sent me to see a urologist, for the weird, painful bloating and the having to run to the bathroom suddenly, ALL THE DAMN TIME.

Finally, this week I had a CT scan and a visit with the urologist. (Who, for the record, is younger than me. DO NOT WANT.) He diagnosed me with Overactive Bladder and sent me home with a new prescription.

So. Let's tally it all up, shall we? I gave up the birth control prescription of my youth, and traded it for something to keep me from peeing my pants when I sneeze and running for the bathroom every five minutes. I may, in the near future, also have to start taking a prescription to help me deal with the shaking, for it is driving me crazy. Youthful Bountiful Girl: 0; Shriveled up and Damaged Old Woman: 2. I went straight from preventing a baby to trying to avoid being like one.

A woman's body does strange things, things men don't have to deal with. It's not just the Bringing Forth New Life miracle, either, although I suppose it's connected. Your body never fully recovers from forcing a watermelon through the eye of a needle, and I don't think it matters if you have one or twenty. Things just don't quite fall back into place correctly. Nobody tells you this, when you're young. Nobody tells you, look, that getting up in the night to pee thing? That's not just to prepare you for what it's like having a snuggly little screamer around at 2am. It never goes back. I guess if they did, nobody would want to have children anymore and then we'd die off as a society. 

My point is, and I know you've been waiting patiently: 40 Sucks. I hadn't really worried a whole lot about it, it's just another birthday. But now I think turning 40 is like having a car with a 60,000 mile warranty. Once you hit 60,001 things starting falling apart.

And apparently, I just clicked over.

 

 

 

Teaching Change.

I am a Gen-Xer. I was told in college that I would have three, four, maybe five different careers before I retire. I heeded that advice, and indeed, it gave me permission to look for that change. I get stagnant, I get bored, I let my ADHD get the best of me, and then I start looking for ways to move on to the next career. I always ask, What's Next?

It's either that or rearrange my living room again.

Even though it's been three years since I left the recruiting business, I still think like a recruiter. And I have something to say:

Corporate Recruiters are missing the point: the idea that careers are going to jump around, the career coaching that my liberal arts professors kept hitting on, nearly 20 years ago. They want to hire employees who have only had two jobs in ten years, or less, for some, but 5 years at a job seems to be the magic number. Even in technology hubs of California, there are companies who will not hire someone who has had three jobs in five years, who is “a jumper” in recruiting terms. But these companies are getting stagnant themselves, because the people they hire want safety before innovation. They’ve hired brilliant engineers on H1B visas who fear losing their job and being sent home, who literally are not in charge of their own destiny. It is the golden handcuffs. It is a cruel and unusual punishment for wanting a better life and having the IQ and skills to get it. And it is forcing these companies into mediocrity. Innovation means change, it is inherently not safe. There are really very few companies who get this.

I digress. I do that. Oh, look at the kitty!

Look, I’ve done corporate, I’ve done small business, I’ve done non-profit. I've seen it from all sides. Now I’ve made the jump to education, which funny enough, is what I’ve always said I wanted to retire from. When I was 22 I said I want to be teaching when I retire, but who knows what will happen in between. I didn’t really care. I was thinking I’d be teaching Shakespeare's influence on pop-culture at the time, but I’m teaching computer skills to elementary kids, instead. Okay, good enough.

And I love it. I’m teaching technology to the next generation of change agents. But teaching them how to cut and paste in Microsoft Word is, in some ways, doing them a disservice. I feel like I need to be teaching them how to look for change. How to look for and become a master user of the next great thing the digital age spits out. And then to find the next thing. But half the time I have to teach them to just click and see what happens first, they are terrified of making a mistake. They are scared to think. We're working on that.

But still, the world of Education isn’t meant for innovation, either. There’s not enough money to innovate. Change has a lot of red tape, and you can’t test fearlessness.

Then I read a couple of articles about a group of people who are defining change.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/162/average-time-spent-at-job-4-years

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/162/generation-flux-future-of-business?partner=homepage_newsletter

Very thought provoking stuff. I've come across some education focused websites which are committed to teaching teachers and students how to innovate, without fear of all that “bad stuff” the internet introduces to our kids (speaking of fear - you should see this next generation of parents. They are ruled by fear. But that's a different post.) Sites like Edmodo, Glogster, Storybird. There are so many more popping up each day, it's breathtaking.

And I am going to teach them to my students - maybe they'll learn how to be fearless in the process. It's not just a career lesson, or a classroom skill. It's a life lesson.

PS - Want some more fun but educational sites you can trust your kids on? Try ABCya, and Kerpoof!