Stop this train
September 17, 2007 at 11:56 
"So scared of getting older, I'm only good at being young." John Mayer
As recent posts have hinted, sometimes “life in the middle” is tinged with angst and inspires more than a little soul searching. My 19-year-old self is trapped in my 45-year-old body. Often I am truly mystified to discover I’ve reached a point in life where conversations with friends regularly include talk about sending kids to college, grandchildren, chronic health problems, elderly or deceased parents, and retirement plans.
When did that happen? When did we cease to be the young upstarts, the rising professionals, the parents of preschoolers, the ones with Big Plans? When did we become the ones that are starting to get in the way of the next generation?
More and more I have a sense of losing my place, of running out of time, of missed opportunities. I wonder where I’m heading, I question where I’ve been.
I never wanted to be one of those annoying women who obsess over age and beauty. I never wanted to be one of those people who gives up on her dreams because she believes she’s too old to achieve them. I never wanted to become a living fossil, stuck in a moment that has long passed. I never wanted to sit on the sidelines and pass my ambitions onto my children like a baton I can no longer carry to the finish line.
But sometimes I catch glimpses of THAT woman in the mirror and I shudder.
About a month ago, after developing some symptoms, I checked a book out of the library on menopause. It sat on my desk for weeks like a bill I wasn’t ready to pay. I finally made a cup of tea, took it to the kitchen table, and sat down and started reading.
I was looking for a motherly guide to The Change. I was looking for a reassuring voice. I was desperate for someone to pat my hand and tell me the best is yet to come, Grrrl! Menopause is nature’s way of saying kick the kids out of the nest and get on with your life. It’s not that bad--soldier on and be all that you can be!
Instead I got a scientific treatise on the upcoming demise of my womanhood. I didn’t want to hear about thinning hair and diminished sexual response, sagging skin and shrinking sex organs, fragile bones and easy weight gain, increased risks for heart disease and mental fuzziness. I felt so compromised, so diminished. Why did I get a book on menopause written by a MAN?
To add insult to injury, the book had a chapter on how to dress to enhance your self esteem. Of course it presumes that you KNOW your beauty has faded and so you had better work harder to keep your place in society. I was furious! The implicit message was that if you wrap sh*t in pretty enough paper, you won’t notice the smell. I wanted to slap the author.
There should have been a pocket on the back cover with a razor blade in it so the reader could slit her wrists once the author had succeeded in convincing her that if she’s reading a book on menopause, her life is over anyway.
“Now, now dear, why not make the world a better place and throw yourself on the burning pyre of your youth?”
Why didn’t they just title the book “Menopause: Nature’s Way of Saying You’re Obsolete”? That was the message I was getting.
It upset me so much that I started to cry, then I berated myself for crying like some basket case from Girl Interrupted, and then I mustered an ironic smile when I realized I was probably emotionally jagged because I was suffering from both perimenopausal insomnia AND premenstrual hormones, caught in a hormonal vise of doom. What had I become? Who was this crazed moody woman?
What a way to be “V-Grrrl in the Middle,” I thought. I wasn’t sure Zoloft or margaritas could help me crawl out of that crevice. I felt stuck in the dark, wedged between fear and regret.
The day after the Menopausal Meltdown, I was out and about with E, tracking down a notary to help us with the paperwork related to the purchase of our new house in Virginia. We were walking all over the enormous compound where E works. I didn’t feel well at all, had taken medication, was chilled by the damp rain, and was moving slowly.
E, on the other hand, was doing what he always does: zipping through life in fifth gear. (When John Mayer sings, “You live your life with your hand on the horn,” I always think of E, wanting people to get out of his way, single mindedly focused only on arriving at his destination.)
On a good day, I struggle to keep up with him. On a bad day, I don’t even try, figuring that at some point he’ll notice I’m not with him anymore, and he’ll stop and wait. That day I kept falling behind, and E was struggling to adjust his pace to mine.
Finally he said to me, his voice tinged with humor that didn’t quite mask his frustration, “I cannot physically walk slowly enough to stay with you. I don’t know HOW to walk that slowly.”
I stopped and looked at him: “If you had a bleeding uterus and felt like someone with two clenched fists was wringing out your guts, you’d know exactly how to walk this slowly. Maybe even slower--because men have such a low tolerance for pain. I’d be leaving YOU behind.”
Ouch. Yeah, I said that. Be glad I wasn’t carrying a hammer or I'd be writing this from prison.
Later when E-Grrrl and A commented that I was grumpy, I sat them both down.
“Listen, we’ve done lots of talking in the last few months about how you’re at an age when your body is producing hormones that will make you look and feel different.
“I’m at an age now where I’m on the other end of that process. Your body is gearing up hormone production and my body is in the process of shutting it down. Sometimes all the changes put me on edge. I know I have to work on NOT being cranky, but I just want y’all to try to be patient with me, and I promise to try to be patient with you while we go through these changes together.”
They looked relieved and a bit proud that I’d shared a Big Adult Truth with them.
Clearly they didn't see the fear on my face.
September 17, 2007
Reader Comments (25)
My husband..chilled to the bone..that perhaps...I was making a third...was elated, when I confirmed, I was not. I was left in this hazy confusion..half sad, half relieved.
This is a time when a grrrl needs her friends.
Thank you, for responding...as a friend would.
much appreciated!
It's easy to get our endings and beginnings mixed up, isn't it?
you managed to write a post that made me ponder and reflect deeply on aging. I just read it twice.
Trust me, you're not alone. As I'm facing physical changes myself I can imagine what you're going through.
But then again, no matter how supportive someones social network may be, in the end we basically have to face these changes on our own.
Let's talk!
Looks like E. has been warned. LOL. Rick has already ventured, "You used to be easier to live with." He's right. But then, so did he.
At least, that's how I'm remembering it presently.
Always the opening phrase for a marital observation I DON'T WANT TO HEAR.
I used to swallow those observations and let them churn under my heart. Not anymore. Now I spit them out and crush them under my heel.
Really, I'm not interested in how much better I used to be at housekeeping, cooking, and entertaining. I'm long past "The Wonder Years" of domesticity.
Great post! I think it's terrific that you sat your kids down and had the talk with them. Knowing they can trust you to tell them the truth is vital for keeping those lines of communication open at this crucial point in all your lives. May the hormones help you make it through ;-)
I can't imagine what it will be like for me when I get to menopause. Being thirty-something is hard enough.
Women get a bum deal one way or another with this hormones thing.
Thanks for writing about this.
Granola Grrrl sent me a link to a book that seems PERFECT for me, takes exactly the approach I want to read on this complex subject. Y'all check this out:
http://www.amazon.com/Ripe-Truth-Growing-Beauty-Getting/dp/1582701326/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product/104-5578824-6231944
You aren't going to change anything. You need to accept it and deal with it. There are huge physical, psychological, emotional and social implications to other medical issues as well. I don't see menopause any differently, other than you have the advantage of you know it's coming and can somewhat prepare.
I've now learned many other women see things very differently and I expect, we'll each go through the changes differently.