Call the Fire Department!

The Big M has hit -- suddenly and without mercy.

At first (as in, last week), I figured that stores had turned up their thermostats for some inexplicable reason, that maybe I was coming down with a fever (once every few hours), and that maybe I was dressing for the weather changing in the wrong direction. Surely there had to be some explanation other than the fact that I'll turn 50 in less than two months and nature was... well, taking its appropriate course.

Some of my friends had described their "personal summers" to me over the past year and I listened compassionately, actually gloating a bit inside that I was having an easy time of it all, sliding with dignity into a graceful middle age. Well, I have been humbled, much like I was humbled by a torturous second labor after boasting about how easy birth was for me, how my body was made for giving birth...

Nature has a cruel sense of humor, it turns out, and I am the butt of the joke this month. I am not laughing. In fact, in the past week, in addition to wanting to suddenly strip naked for all the wrong reasons, I have also found myself erupting into tears for just about no discernable reason -- something quite unlike me.

Couldn't I just have reached 50 first? Could not just that much mercy be shown?