Faint signs of progress

A few years ago, I talked to a doctor about this odd thing that started happening to me back in college. "Sometimes, when I stand up too fast, my vision goes all pixelated or turns black, and sometimes I lose muscle control or fall over. It's kinda weird." "You mean, you start to faint." the doctor said, bluntly. What? Me, faint? Fainting is for anorexics and ladies who wear corsets and your spinster aunt Melba. Yep. It's a form of fainting. Another doctor called it "positional low blood pressure," which means my blood vessels don't react quick enough to the change in position and the blood rushes from my brain or nerves or whatever. This is ridiculous for a woman who tends to bolt into action at the slightest provocation. It annoys me. I don't want to be that person. That weak, fragile "woman who faints." It smacks of Southern Belles and sorority girls. (That's another story.) But I am. And this year, I've gotten a little nicer to myself about it. I try to allow for it. That doesn't mean I've stopped jumping up from my chair. I still bolt out of bed when Roosevelt is conducting Kitty Terrorism at 3:00 in the morning, despite the fact that a) I'm blind and b) I might just fall over, even without running into things. I didn't like accepting it, because frankly it's sometimes a little scary. Sometimes my arms or legs start to shake and I can't see where I'm falling to. It doesn't happen every day, or even every week. It seems worse when my hormones are wacky or my sinuses are acting up, but that's just a theory. So, I guess another thing I've learned this year is to make peace with my fragility. Or at least how to begin. Perhaps because I connected so much to my Dad, I've always tried to be tough. I joke that I'd be the only person left standing if a tornado came, simply because I'd refuse to fall over. Now I realize I fall over all the time. I run into stuff a lot too. Matt calls me "M. McKlutzie." He's right. Big whoop. So you'd better watch it. I might just pass out.