Menopause Monologues

Monday 19 November 2012

When it was my mother's turn, she went a bit weird, she says.  She was three years older than I am now, and it's funny but I can't remember her weird spell.  Perhaps I was caught up in my own stuff and didn't notice.  Which makes me feel particularly sad, because it is a rather intense experience to have to go through unacknowledged.

She got all paranoid, the way I am at the moment.  Was convinced Dad was having an affair.

My auntie, her sister, got ultra sensitive and would slam out of the room and off to her bedroom on the edge of a comment which left my cousin and her dad scratching their heads and asking what upset her this time?

My body hasn't reached the menopause threshold yet.  Except for the paranoia bit.  But I have all of the body chemistry that points to it being an experience much more difficult than it needs to be - low progesterone, high estrogen, high copper.  It's that trio that makes it such an intensely uncomfortable experience.

And if I'm not even there yet and I'm feeling like this - well, all I can say is that I'm actually sorta hoping that what I am doing at the moment is ironing out all the creases, a little early, so that when menopause actually happens I will fly through it, relatively speaking.

That's the plan, anyway.

~

I remember the day my cousin got her period for the very first time.  It must have been a weekend or school holidays because I was there, as was usually the case :)  I think it was mid-morning.  I don't remember what happened exactly except for murmurings and toilet visits by her mother.  I don't remember any conversation.  I do remember the feeling though.  It was mystery, a place I wasn't yet.  There is an 18-month gap between us, and it was perhaps never so deep a chasm as it felt on that strange day when my cousin turned into a being different than she was before, now this thing was happening to her :)

I mean, it's so weird, right?

The world is bizarre :)

~

I sat outside with my chooks after letting them out of the pen this morning.  Selma and Tristan scrabbled around in the dirt pecking at things and brrring and clucking and being all chicken.  Patty was nowhere to be found.  She was off in the dark confines of the nesting box, doing the secret women's business of egg-laying that Selma is yet to be initiated into. 

Such a common thing, laying an egg.  But such a production, as well.  I feel honoured that we get to eat what her body works so hard to produce.

9 comments

  1. You have a great attitude, Sue, and I'd say you'll come through just fine. But then I'm a fella, so what do I know?:) I love me every production of Chooks Inc - had two for brekkies today. I lick the plate.

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  2. I was thrilled to get to menopause. Emotionally I took a leap into self composure at that time, no longer living on top of my emotions — no self-help needed, it just came with the territory, hooray. What's interesting though is that there aren't any passages, at least that we name after that. If menopause hits you at the end of your 40's that's about half a lifetime, assuming you live long. What about all those later decades, why are there no big turning points? Of course there are, and we should start naming them for ourselves, instead of confining our stages of life according to whether or not we can reproduce. And I just want to respond to the previous comment by Riley — it isn't talked about much, I know, but men go through a menopause too, and with an equally challenging array of symptoms, because of the reduction in testosterone.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andropause

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  3. Your comment is heartening as ever, Sarah :)


    You're so right about all of those stages that come after being unnamed! I guess the name that first comes to mind - and which my cousin mentioned to me on the weekend - is crone. I love the crone, and I am so looking forward to eating her food :) But yes ... what else after that? Interesting food for thought.


    It's funny you should refer to that wikipedia page on andropause - I was just looking at it yesterday.

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  4. Are you joking about the great attitude, Harry? :P I haven't been displaying it lately then, have I, with all this hanging it on your gender :P

    Yay for Chooks Inc :)

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  5. Kel cre8space.blogspot.com24 November 2012 at 13:36

    of eggs and periods and becoming unfertile
    what an interesting post
    being in the midst of all that secret women's business myself, i can't wait till its all over
    i have a feeling my creativity will become way more fertile once i'm not bleeding my guts out every few weeks
    when i come back i think i'll try being a man for a change

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  6. My doc tells me I'm too young to be perimenopausal, but I'm certain I am. Even with the assistance of contraceptive hormones (to control my migraines), I have periodic (pun intended?) but non-cyclic weirdness that goes on in my body, mind, or emotions, that seems not to fit into a normally functioning woman of childbearing age. It makes me nuts. And frankly, there will not by choice nor by accident be any more babies for me, so why can't I just choose to be done with it?

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  7. Your doc doesn't know what they are talking about, to be quite blunt. I have been premenopausal since I was 35. I don't think it's all that uncommon. It sure sounds like you are. I sooooooooooo agree - I would love to be able to turn off the switch and be done with the whole bloody thing!!! Hugs to you; I know how hard this is.

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  8. I can't wait either, Kel. I love what you say about your creativity becoming more fertile once you get your guts back. I agree! I'm sorry too that you understand what this feels like :(

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  9. Yes I think we maybe haven't accurately defined "perimenopause" in the medical community. I'm sure it begins before 40.

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