There’s a couple of things about me everyone who meets me should know: I’m not as innocent as I look, and I sure as hell am stronger than fortified steel when push comes to shove and I have to prove myself or survive.

My week started off great. No complaints whatsoever.

Sunday: Great company, mini-golf, and good conversation. Followed by a delicious dinner and wine Monday night with more flowing conversation.

Tuesday, things began to trail off, as I was asked last-minute to pick up my best friend from the bus station in Hartford that evening. I love her, but she knows my anxieties associated with sudden city-driving requests like this. I did it anyways, and, ultimately, it was fine, even if I parked in the wrong place because I get easily flustered.

Wednesday, I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor to take my blood pressure. It’s been six weeks since my last appointment where my blood pressure was at 120/90. I’ve consistently been at 120/70 for years before I re-started birth control. She’s concerned about the sudden change, particularly because blood clots are a risk after thirty.

I quit smoking cigarettes six weeks ago. My appointment had been on a Friday, when the doctor told me smoking was probably raising my blood pressure. The following Tuesday, after Fourth of July weekend, I quit.

I started doing yoga 2-3 times a week in May. I routinely go running, hiking, or walking.

I don’t drink alcohol at all during the week anymore, with a rare exception for a special occasion.

A little over two weeks ago, I began a ketogenic diet, where I’ve cut out carbs and sugars. I’m taking a handful of vitamins suspected to help diminish PMDD symptoms, and I’ve lost about an inch off my waist and a couple of pounds so far. I feel like a million dollars on roller skates. There’s no stopping me…

My doctor charted my blood pressure at 120/82. Still too high, she says. She was going to take me off the birth control that day, but I begged her not to. I told her I felt anxious because the medical assistant’s vitriol about the possibility of me being pregnant (I’m not!) and demanding a pee sample shook me a bit. The birth control I’m on makes my period so light that I basically don’t get it anymore, so my doctor conceded and said, sure, let’s go three more months, but you need to chart your blood pressure multiple times a week and write it down for me. Okay.

I’m just buying time, at this point. If I’ve done everything right and my blood pressure isn’t going back to normal, then the birth control is negatively affecting it. My options are to stop birth control and go back to managing my severe mood swings on my own, try a different birth control, which won’t be as effective with mood stabilization (and could have potential side-effects, since I’ve had horrible luck with nearly every pill I’ve ever tried), take blood pressure medication, and/or go off birth control and try antidepressants.

Ninety-five percent of those options I refuse to do. I’m not going to pump my body with more chemicals that I simply don’t need.

Defeated isn’t even the word. I’ve missed every train, despite my best efforts to make it on time.

After coming home Wednesday, I found out my roommate doesn’t want to renew the lease. We have about a week to sign it and send it back. He waited until now to tell me he wants to move out at the end of September. I’m frustrated that that leaves me no time to either move or find a new roommate, so I am stuck paying over a thousand dollars a month again. This means I will have no life, because I will have no money. I can probably keep going to yoga, but that will be about the only thing I can afford to do if I want to try to save a couple hundred dollars each month.

Thursday was fine. Just fine. I didn’t feel normal, but I didn’t feel awful. All week, I’ve been irritable, having a bit of trouble getting to sleep, and generally pessimistic and down, but nothing like what I would feel without the birth control, in which case, I’d be writing this while crying and between cigarette and whiskey breaks.

I just want things to be easy. I did what I was required to do, life, now you uphold your end.

My doctor, with slight panic in her voice, said to me, “Don’t start smoking again, despite these results. You’re doing so good!” Don’t worry, Doc. Not my intention. My hormones and blood pressure might fucking hate me with the boundless rage of a sixteen year old’s first revenge after being dumped, but I’m not really the quitting type. Well, except for the time I quit doing all those bad things and bread, recently.

So, this is how my week is going to go? Okay.

I am into the weekend now, and the pessimism is subsiding a little.

I had a dream last night that I was eating bread. Years ago, when I had been a vegetarian, I dreamt about eating meat. After quitting cigarettes, I dreamt about smoking for days on end. Last night, it was carbs.

But I’m doing it. Each day. Yesterday, I thought about cheating and grabbing a small fry at McDonald’s in Bloomfield, since I had just stopped at the Jamaican bakery to buy coco bread for a party I’m attending this afternoon. I didn’t. I allow myself minimal cheats during the week, because I am striving hard for my goals.

Some people find it difficult to stick to a routine or diet. I was always one of those people, until I realized that my life depended on it, and the only person I was cheating was me.

My blood pressure might not be impressed by my recent changes, but my mental clarity and my overall physical health are giving me silent applause.

If my week wants to be a little bitch, she can. I’m finally finding the muscle to hold on a little longer, even if it burns every fiber of me in the moment.