Reality Check

The past few weeks have been a roller coaster ride. My emotions, like eggs rolling on the coaster car’s floor between my feet. I try to stop them, but they crack and ooze with a gooey reality check.

I’ve been on hormone replacement for years, and I was under a delusion my emotions were under control – that I was too old and therefore no longer at the mercies of this monthly ride. How foolish we humans are, so easily sucked into our fantasies of power and restraint. A tiny pill, half the size of a pencil eraser, one milligram, zapped my myth. Between our insurance provider insisting on a generic medication substitution or pay through-the-nose, and our drug store closing because of Obama insurance restructuring, I was left for a month without my milligram of hormonal sanity.

I didn’t care at first. It comes on slow. The coaster moves away from the platform and chugs up a scenic incline. "Oh, LOOK. How beautiful. Maybe I don’t need that pill anymoreeeeeeeeeeeh." I fall headlong into a tantrum. Expletives fly like egg bombs. As I round a bend into a black tunnel, tears streak my yolk covered face.

The doorbell rings. FedEx. My meds delivery – expedited.

Only a few more loops now, and I’ll be back to the platform. What was I thinking? One lie or another. That’s what fiction writers do best.