Menopause Makeover!

What if there was a game show where women going through menopause had a chance to win a makeover to help them get comfortable in their new (actually older) skin? Not assistance in looking younger, but help finding them ways to feel comfortable in aging, changing bodies?

I'd throw my name into the hat. 

I would love someone to share advice for moisturizers that would effectively control the dry patches that now consume the upper half of my face. 

For a personal shopper to give suggestions on what my work better with my thickening middle. 

For make up application tips on how to deal with wrinkled eyelids and deepening circles. 

For finding bras that are more comfortable for droopy boobs

For exercise routines specific to bodies that heal slower, have been injured, deserve more TLC. 

For dealing with strands, streaks, swaths of grey hair. Hair changing texture. Even falling out. 

For finding not just emotional comfort and acceptance, but excitement and enthusiasm at being in the new place. 

Looking younger isn't my goal. I have no interest in Botox or chemical peels or liposuction (no judgement to those who choose that route). I want to treat my body and soul with kindness and respect. But I want to be comfortable where I am now instead of trying to be who I'm not anymore. 

a leaky faucet metaphor

I was at a Halloween party, talking to a friend about aging. He mentioned  that while men and women go through many similar things, women have a much more a concrete delineation as to hormonal shifts and changes. As in menstruation. Finite starting and stopping.  

Well, at least the starting part. 

When you're a teenager your period shows up. Unexpectedly. Usually without warning. Some girls gets cramps beforehand  but most don't. Regardless of age, race, weight, hair color, sexual preference your period starts one day. Specific beginning. And that's that. 

The other end of the spectrum is basically the opposite. Instead of a faucet turning from off to on, it's a slow, stop and go, erratic process that can last up to 12 years. A leak that shows up when you least expect it - sometimes a slow trickle, sometimes full force. What once could have been a regular cycle can disappear for months at a time or show up every couple of weeks. To be post menopausal means no period for an entire year so you wont know for sure that you're there until you're barely thinking about it any more. 

Nothing like living with not knowing. 

People tend to note the similarities of the beginning and end of menstruation: hormonal shifts, emotional changes, skin breakouts, a body getting used to a new way of being. But to me it seems the biggest similarity is the not knowing from before my period even started. Not knowing when it's coming. If it's coming.  

I'm not there yet. My period arrives every 22/23 days. But I know eventually I'll be waiting. And wondering. 

age defying

This summer I was in a department store looking for moisturizer. I was in London, in search of Boots No. 7, which came highly recommended. Standing in front over an overwhelming product assortment I asked the well made up sales clerk for help. She explained the brand came in 3 versions (I paraphrase):

1. Dewey new skin ages up to 25

2. Slightly older skin that needs some TLC from 25-35

3. Mature skin which encompasses everyone over 35

I fell into the last category. As do many, if not most women. I wondered how the vast majority of woman of women, from 35 to as long as someone is willing and able to purchase moisturizer, could possibly be clumped together. 

The reality is because we don't really count. Not to project developers. Not to advertisers. Not to marketers. 

Instead of feeling comfortable in our normally aging skin we're made to  both regret that we're not young anymore while trying our damnedest to look like we are. 

We're sold goods that claim to be age defying! wrinkle reducing! fine line erasing! as if those superficial effects could wipe out where we are in our lives. By categorizing all women over 35 together we're not so subtly being told that we're not important enough to address individually. Only by mimicking youth will we be acknowledged and provided for. 

While at first glance this doesn't relate directly to menopause (my writing topic of the moment), it sort of does. Menopause is about aging. It's about changing bodies, hormones, even skin. By being sold the message that we should retain youth at all costs, our very aging process is being negated. 

I bet if someone came out with menopausal moisturizer, they'd make a fortune. Once we ditch the aging stigma that's so thoroughly ingrained in all of us. 

me and my period

Now that the days of me and my period are somewhat numbered, I wanted to take a moment and publicly state that I'll miss it when it's gone. It's been 36 years since that first one. The one when I didn't realize I'd gotten it but my mother knew by my stilted description of back pain and brown stains. She, who against my pleas, told my dad, who brought it up as a casual conversation starter at dinner, which still ranks as one of my most embarrassing moments ever. 

Oops. I digress.

In spite of the leaks, the doubling over cramps, the at times intense mood swings, the chocolate cravings when more than once I gnawed on baker's chocolate to quell the desire, the 30 plus years avoiding swimming because I thought I wasn't supposed to, my period and I have shared one of the most long-standing, reliable relationships of my life. 
It showed up in the city, in the suburbs, at college, on vacation. Whether I was single, dating, married, there it was. My hair permed, my fashion choices questionable, whether I was fighting a cold, healing from a broken bone, practicing yoga, or writing a book it rarely failed me. 

It went missing once when anorexia got the better of me and the two times I was pregnant, then nursing. That first time, when my period stopped for no obvious reason (obvious to me anyway) I realized how much comfort I took even in the discomfort. How familiar, how soothing the routine was. How reassuring that regular occurrence was, letting me know hey! your body is working the way it's supposed to. 

Perhaps I'm glorifying it a bit now that the end is in sight. Back in the day I was mortified every time I had to buy supplies. Petrified I'd get it unexpectedly and someone would find out. I hid it beneath embarrassment and discomfort. But as I got older (and wrote a book about menstruation), the shame fell away and I was left with deep appreciation that all was as it should be. 

When my period finally stops there will be a void. Maybe the change will be for the better but from here it sort of feels like I'll be letting go of a comforting old friend. 

it's all menopause's fault

Now that I'm going through menopause I'm finding it's a very convenient scapegoat. 

My period shows up every 23 days?

Damn that faultering estrogen. 

I wake up 4 or 5 times during the night and have trouble getting back to sleep every single time?

Shifting hormones. 

My middle is thicker than it's ever been?

Change of life stuff. 

Super frizzy hair? Droopier boobs? Mysterious pains in my shoulders? Chronic fatigue? Arid sinuses? Scaly dry patches at the edges of my eyebrows?

Crepe-y skin covering my inner elbows? Angry purple streaks lining the backs of my thighs? Age spots that I remember from Porcelana commercials?

Random thoughts of death and destruction? Tearing up at that Budweiser commercial when the owner doesn't come home at night while his dog patiently waits for him and you think something terrible happened but it was just that he was being responsible and not drinking and driving? 

This nagging feeling I'll never accomplish anything significant again? 

Forgetting where my keys are? Whether or not I've washed shampoo out of my hair? Did I turn the oven off? Walk the dogs? Make the kids dinner?

That stain on my rain coat I can't get out? The F train that never comes? The fact that I still can't do a handstand? 

And the pièce de résistance . . . PEE LEAKS?

I don't want to keep pointing fingers but menopause*. But I'm on to you. 

*yes I'm aware menopause can't be responsible for all these things but being that no one can say for sure what menopause does actually do except switch up your hormones and pull the menstruation plug I'm standing by my accusations. 

40 days of menopause

I've been pondering the topic of menopause for quite some time - ever since I finished my last book, which was about menstruation. Natural next step one would think.  To be honest I've never gotten past the barely thinking about it phase. For five years.

And in those five years I've been traveling the perimenopausal path trying remarkably hard to give as little thought to it as possible.

But, whether or not I think about it, read about it, write about it, grapple with it, look forward to it, fear it, it's inevitable. And so, I thought I'd dip my toe in the water and see how researching it feels. Which, at the end of the day, means acknowledging that it's happening. 

To me. 

Right now. 

Not that that's a bad thing. 

I'm not even sure what it is yet. 

But perhaps it's time to stop not thinking.

London Calling

I never wanted a dog. Everyone else in my family did and I was always the nay sayer, sure it would be a disaster in too many ways to count. 

Turns out we are a total dog family and the two pups we're lucky to live with have brought more joy and love than I ever could have imagined. 

I never thought about being an adventure family. Options and variables and what ifs  along with family and familiarity kept our traveling comfortable and remarkably the same. We've been on countless cruises and seen a variety of beaches. We've been down to the Jersey Shore every summer for 14 years. The roads to Florida and Vermont are well traveled. 

This year though, with big birthdays to commemorate (2 50s, 16 and 13) we decided to shake things up and head to London. 

Nothing but unknowns. 

My stomach is in a knot. 

Part of me is thrilled. 

Another part is terrified. 

But I have a feeling this, like our pups, will be a game changer. 

Feels like the right time to discover we're far more than we think we are.