I mean, how does one forget such things? Probably because it's not necessary to dwell on the hell we've been through I suppose. BUT ... this whole peri-menopausal or whatever it is thing is worth noting because I can not IMAGINE what it must have been like to be our mothers and grandmothers going through this experience without the benefit of the Internet!
Sure, I get information from friends, but everyone has their own timetable with this process and in truth, I don't have a lot of friends who have "gone to the other side." My mother went on hormone therapy when she started experiencing symptoms (which I think were hot flashes, which is one symptom I do not have) and she then went off of them ten years later and is still experiencing symptoms in her late 60's. NO THANKS ON THAT ONE THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
I mean, each generation wants to make it better for their children -- and I appreciate the fact that she was the guinea pig for that experiment! But it's like a cork -- you take hormones until they tell you that it is no longer safe to take them -- and whammo, you unleash the horrors!
My take on the whole situation has been to realize that it's not something that can be fixed. There are no quick fixes for a stage in life; if there was, we'd cure puberty! And that's kind of what it's like -- a puberty going in the other direction -- with all the hormones swirling about making you feel dizzy and crazed.
Now one helpful thing would be if it was also something men went through! They do go through puberty, but that's it. No childbirth, no menopause. Nope. So, when my husband wonders why I can't get off the couch or snap his head off because he's asked stupid question number 340 of the day, I don't feel compelled to tell him that this has been happening to women throughout the ages and hopefully it is just a STAGE, it has a name and LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE, because seriously? Why doesn't he get it? Why doesn't he at least TRY to get it.
Once I do manage to get off the couch, I go to the Internet and type in "what the hell is going on with me I bled for 10 days and am pale and dizzy," and let me tell you, the hits are countless. I am NOT ALONE. Oh no. In fact, I read about other symptoms I didn't even realize I had -- like my head feeling heavy. Yeah, I thought, as I read it, I have that too! My head IS heavy. Like the weight of the world moved from my shoulders to my head!
So I am in that space of what am I going to do about it? I have been taking this superfood called Maca powder, which definitely staved off the crazies. I went off of it for two weeks because one, you're supposed to, and two, I am starting a cleanse on Monday and you're supposed to go off all supplements. So that means for two consecutive weeks I have been off of something that clearly keeps me off the couch and keeps the periods from turning into novella's. (Seriously, who came up with the term PERIOD? There is nothing small, petite or final about it. It comes, it comes, it comes it comes. NO FRICKING PERIOD!) It's an never-ending dot. dot. dot. Ellipsis. From now on I don't have a period, I have an ellipsis. Which apparently lawyers use to omit information between droning information (and I use them too, love them, but I use them to imply more information, not the omission thereof!) Anywho, from now on I have a monthly ellipsis.
The complete and total lack of energy is the biggest killer for me. But I am trying not to fight it. This isn't a war -- it's moving from one stage of life into another. It's the same reason why the thought of a grandchild doesn't make me want to pass out, but sounds kind of cool. I mean, where did that come from? It's such a small window between I wonder if I want another baby, am I really done? Seriously, there will be no more sleeplessness and breastfeeding and a cute little toddler climbing into my lap? ... to OMG if I get pregnant I will shoot myself, and seeing other people with small children and literally feeling yourself breaking out into hives at the thought. Teeny, tiny window where all that goes through your head and then suddenly you think, wow, I'd love to have a baby in my life where I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE. And yet, I have all these cool stuff I'd like to teach a child (since mine no longer listen!) So that leaves being a grand mother.
My mother HATED becoming a grandmother. She wasn't a whole lot older than I am, and seriously, I wouldn't care (in terms of how people would view me, or think to myself that I am TOO YOUNG to be a grandmother.) Grandmothers are hip these days, it's not about sitting in a rocking chair and sucking on your gums and shelling peas. (Though right now, today, this very moment when I am all bled out and dizzy and face heavy, that sounds quite appealing!)
So, really what I need to do is get me some Maca! But eventually I presume even that will not stem the tide of what is going to happen, which is again, something I am fine with, for the most part. I don't stare in the mirror for hours and rue every line that has come to dwell upon my face. I just don't. I look at people in the public eye, like Madonna, who is killing herself trying to stay young (and her latest face lift has turned her into another face) and think, why? I mean, Joan Rivers took that route, and you don't look at her and think FABULOUS! You think, holy shit. Batman.
There is no plastic surgery or botox in my future -- my aim is to age well by maintaining a healthy diet and lifestyle. Age well not for the sake of aging well, mind you, but for the sake of maintaining a quality of life well into my late three digit years! I have longevity genes on both sides of my family and I intend to live a long, long time.
So I suppose this later-in-life puberty will be a forgotten thing, much as the puberty of my earlier-in-life was. I remember being a tad moody (who cares, swearing is fun and pissing people off is even more fun) and of course living through the angst of all that ... and let me tell you, no thank you, would not return to that for anything. So I have no intention of holding on to my youth in the form of keeping these hormones from doing the thing they are programmed to do. I just have to wrap my head around it, is all. It's my first taste -- the last time I longed for the couch with all my might and wondered if I would have the energy to get there -- was when I was pregnant. Which is the last time I had this type of cocktail of hormones sweeping through me.
This too shall pass. Unfortunately it is doing so in a red tidal wave!
Or ellipsis.
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