No Sweat

You might be wondering how any female writing about aging can fail to mention menopause; often a highly memorable event in a woman's life, unless of course more drastic circumstances occurred involving a hysterectomy.  I have known so many women who traveled one or the other of those two paths, and I know either one can be a challenge, so, like a lot of us, I was bracing for it in equal measures of dread and anticipation of no more periods; the anticipation part happened mostly during the periods. Any men who might wander onto the this blog, hear me now: women are amazing creatures.  We ride a hormonal bucking bronco every 28 days or so for years unless we're pregnant, which is no bed of roses itself. Then we endure unimaginable pain to bring life into the world, only to forget sleeping for the foreseeable future to care for that new life. Once we get sleep back, we have teenagers and there goes sleeping again. And then, maybe there's an interlude in there where things settle down...until night sweats, hot and cold flashes and a bit of insanity kick in. And they call us the weaker sex! Most women have a harrowing tale to tell about their path to and through menopause. But I can summarize my personal story in just a few words: there wasn't much to it.

I began perimenopause at 42.  Nothing at all unusual in that but it caught me totally off guard because by then I was dealing with a daughter in crisis and my own body wasn't my focus. I wasn't sure what was happening at first, but I felt like I'd lost any semblance of control over myself. Every single one of the classic symptoms was there.  Every. Last. One. Much to my husband's dismay. If you don't know what I mean by that, look them up.  You'll figure it out.  Mood swings probably plagued me most of all. Baby, my mood was swinging wild from the rafters. I was literally insane for a couple of days every month for a few months. I woke up a few times drenched in enough sweat to sink the Titanic but that was nothing compared to some of the crazy that washed over me. 

Once I caught on, I was able to get the mood swings under some semblance of control and most of the rest of it sort of dissipated on its own. In all, maybe there were five fun filled months before things leveled out. Again, I didn't think too much about it - I was just glad to get off that particular roller coaster because life was quite the ride in and of itself. I experienced just enough of it with just enough vigor, for lack of a better word, to be able to nod knowingly when someone would complain of having a hot flash or not having slept due to night sweats. But I never had night sweats again. And I wouldn't experience hot flashes again for another four years and then only in passing.

When I hit 46 and the real thing kicked in, it was like a bulb about to go out.  It winked on and off for a bit and then, pop, it was gone.  Almost anticlimactic. The most memorable moment - and I remember the moment so specifically I can tell you precisely where I was, who I was with, and what I was doing at the time - is when I realized I was done with menstrual cycles. Despite all those years of whining and complaining about them and actually looking forward to menopause, I felt an overwhelming sense of melancholy.  I realized that a door was closing on a phase of my life and there was no going back. It's hard to describe or justify how I felt - it's not like I was going to have anymore children at 47. But I guess it was just a very definitive announcement that I was no longer young and I needed a moment to process that.

In the way I have of making a short story long, my minimal experience with all the things a lot of women go through is why I didn't address it right out of the gate.  I guess I feel like I didn't earn my stripes: like I can't claim to be part of the sisterhood. If you feel I owe any of you an apology for not traveling that same uncomfortable path, you got it.  I watched enough of you go through the full experience to accept you earned it.

However it happened for any of us, and whatever sense of regret we might have at the moment, can we all agree that there is one great thing about aging: I don't miss periods. At all.