My Menopausal Monster

  

Its 200 degrees and I’m sweating like I’m standing in the open sun in the middle of the desert.  I’m yanking my hair up off my neck and fanning myself with a Domino’s pizza flyer someone stuck in my mailbox.   I’ve stripped down to a tank top and shorts and I’m sitting on my front steps in the middle of the night in February.    In ten minutes, I’ll be wrapped up in a fleece blanket, falling blissfully back to sleep until the next round of hot flash.

I feel tired most of the time.   I’ll be awake for thirty minutes, still enjoying that first cup of coffee and I will start to nod off as the morning news drones on in the background like a soft lullaby.   For a girl who used to stay up past midnight reading books, it's almost laughable to see me struggle to keep my eyes open at eight-thirty at night.  

Dark hair has begun to appear on my chin.  Just one or two.  So now plucking is a ritual, along with the daily scrutiny to see if I can escape the day makeup-free or if I look like the walking dead.   Is that a wrinkle?? When did my laugh lines begin to deepen so much???

I ache a lot.  My body parts like to take turns.   One day my elbow will ache, making me question every move I ever made with my arm.  The next day my pinky toe will throb, and it might even be swollen.  Then there’s the rotation of the leg aches and back aches and mysterious sharp pains that randomly hit you when you move a certain way.   When you stumble you are suddenly very much afraid of the consequences but in a way thankful that this time you will know where you got those bruises.

Did you think the PMS mood swings were bad?   I’ll bet our men did.   I’ll bet they were looking forward to the days that the PMS demons would disappear.   They shouldn’t have been so eager.  Menopause mood swings are experienced mood swings.  They are years of PMS moods bulked up and thrown out at random.   You could be having a very normal conversation and then someone says something just slightly off and suddenly it's like the gates of hell have opened and your most sophisticated demon comes out to play and instill fear into everyone who dared to look at you wrong.   Or you cry.    There is not an in between. 

You’ll crave the bad food, and you’ll just give up and go for it.  Your metabolism stopped; in fact, I think it left on vacation with no promise of return.   You’ll be far less tolerant of everything you were quite tolerant of in the past, and the things that used to really bother you are now things you just shrug about.

Did we all really look forward to the days when we wouldn’t have our period?   Did we not read the fine print on this little contract???

Welcome to Menopause.

It sucks.

Have some cake.