Those Tiny Unsightly Hairs.....

I recently read Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad about my Neck, and if you are in your forties, you have to read it. I felt immediately normal upon reading that book. I love her biting humor and the concise way that she can make a point. At one point she talks about her excess facial hair, the “mustache” that appears after menopause. As she says, “along came menopause. And with it, my mustache changed: It was no longer dormant, incipient, and threatening; it was now just plain there.” Every woman that I know who hits her late 30’s and then 40’s develops this thing we call “unwanted hair”. It’s on our upper lip. It’s on our chin. It’s on our nipples. It seems to be just everywhere! We tweeze it. We laser it. We bleach it. We do the threading thing. Then it turns into tiny little bristly white hair called whiskers. Nothing short of nuclear explosion can make those bad boys go away. They have moved in and are comfortable and warm. When I get too old to know better, I am going to hire a person, probably a really cute gay guy who dresses well and calls me “Honey”, who will come into the nursing home and tweeze my whiskers so I won’t look like the Cheshire Cat!

Those Womanly Functions....

So it’s a beautiful day outside after a couple of weeks of schizophrenic weather. Thank God for the Vitamin D infusion! At least the weather mirrored my overall mental health—cold, warm, up, down. In perimenopause or menopause, you got to expect that it is going to be that way. A screaming banshee at one moment and tea drinker with her pinky out the next. In a bizarre sort of way, I like how it keeps the men in my family jumping. They never really know what to expect. Of course it doesn’t always have to be out loud, in public, these rages. Most of them are inside and just sound loud inside my own head.

Recently I read an article titled Not Your Mother’s Menopause, in More magazine-March 2008 issue. Two doctors, Dr. Hilda Hutcherson and Dr. Donnica Moore, were interviewed in this article. Both were associated with women’s health organizations. One doctor was in a perimenopause. The other was in the middle of menopause. I liked when they talked about postmenopausal zest, a term coined by anthropologist Margaret Mead. Apparently, some women experience a sense of sadness at the finality of it. They quoted one woman as saying, “The blood is no longer going down, so it’s going to your brain.” Something they say is not biologically correct (You think!), but metaphorically correct.

But for me, it has been over for a long time. I am infertile. I couldn’t have a baby without significant intervention from a fertility specialist. I had unexplained infertility. Thankfully, we were able to have a son via GIFT surgery. But I have not used any kind of birth control since my son was born—over twelve years. So I had to rethink, a long time ago, what these types of womanly functions were to me. Believe me for a long time, I felt broken. A woman is supposed to be able to have a baby. Right? But now it is maddening to have a period, as sporadic as it is, because it seems so utterly useless. A waste of time. Why have menstruations when you cannot conceive? So basically I feel like I have been in menopause for a long time even though I still have gotten a period. So postmenopausal zest will be just that for me. A blast. A party. A complete and utter savings in the cost of mini, maxi, midi pads and tampons! I can throw them all away or turn them into confetti for the party that is bound to come.

It could happen to you...

Hot flashes start slowly. Like an internal combustion engine, the flash begins at the center of my chest and then slowly creeps up through my spinal cord to my head. Before I know it, sweat beads on my forehead and I am thinking about removing my clothing. Unfortunately, they begin when I am in a public place so removing any article of clothing sans a scarf or a sweater is somewhat risky. Removing my shoes helps, but again, I can’t do it if I am on a dirty carpet or floor. Then I have bigger worries. Yuk! I remember when my mother went through menopause and had hot flashes. I would find her out in our breezeway in the dead of February, snow on the ground, icicles hanging from the eaves of the house…I’d ask, Mom what are you doing out here? She would wiggle her collar and wipe her brow and say, It’s so hot isn’t it? Aren’t you hot too? I’d be well, Mom, I’m outside and it’s a low of 22 degrees in the dead of February. No I’m not hot. But now, I know. Now I understand just how hot she was because I’m hot too. In fact, I’m saying the same thing to my 30 something friends and acquaintances…”It’s so hot, isn’t it? Aren’t you hot? Like I don’t have a clue. They look at me and laugh, but I tell them, wait…someday it’ll happen to you too.