Riddle Me This

What do Barbie Girls, Mapquest, and my health insurance carrier have in common?

Answer: They all appear in my current list of frequently-visited websites. Midstream does not.

Lately it feels as if someone else wrote the entries here. A co-worker, maybe, who left the job abruptly, leaving me unprepared to carry on in her place. Every time I think about jumping in where she left off, I don't know where to begin. The more time passes, the harder it gets.

I wish this feeling were less familiar. The truth is, I've often had the feeling that two different women inhabit my life, like the Odd Couple, or a tragically bad job-share. One with energy and verve, who organizes the house, undertakes complex projects, volunteers for tasks, parents with a clear and level head. And the other one, foggy and overwhelmed, who uses every bit of energy she can muster just to crawl through the day's minimum requirements.

No, it's not always that black and white. But not knowing which version of me is going to report for duty tomorrow morning is something I learned to live with a long time ago. Hubby at least knew what he was signing on for before we took our vows. How the kids make sense of it, I can't imagine.

The past few weeks, I've been taking a long, hard look at the wildly varying degrees of wellness that I experience from week to week ... sometimes day to day ... and I don't like what I see. The monthly sinus infections were just the last straw. (Nothing like a stabbing pain in your left eye to make you pay attention, I always say. I guess the Universe finally realized "subtle" isn't my thing.)

I'm ready to get to the bottom of this riddle. For the moment, I'm choosing to do that by ditching conventional medicine -- which has done nothing but pile chemical upon chemical with limited success -- in favor of a host of more natural, holistic healers. Though they purport to look at the whole person, still each sees her own version of the woman in front of her, offers her own explanation, suggests her own cure.

It is taking vast amounts of time, energy, and money -- and I will do it all, as long as it helps in the end.

I'm doing this for me, because I deserve to feel better than I do today. I'm doing it for my family. Because we all deserve to know who is going to be downstairs making their breakfast when they wake up tomorrow.