My Perimenopause Era

No one warned us about this.   

You spend your pre-teen years reading Are You There God, It's Me Margaret, praying to survive puberty.

Then spend your post-college years having fun, trying not to get pregnant. You might get married, subsequently decide to procreate or realize, in my case, that motherhood is not on your bingo card. But no matter which path you picked, there was always medical support, should you need birth control to IVF.

Then midlife happens. And no one tells us what happens next.

If we're fortunate, we will spend most of our waking hours in our post-fertile years, yet there has been little to no "life education" about how we're supposed to handle it.

I'm still waiting for Judy Blume to write, Are You There God, It's Margaret. WTF. I'm in Menopause.

Puberty was bad enough.  No one prepared us for this second coming. 

The irritability, the irrational fears, the roller coaster emotions, the irregular periods, insomnia. Then my favorites: brain fog, the itching of my inner ears, hair loss, the midsection weight gain...I think there is a list of 50+ symptoms that can be traced back to our decline of estrogen.  

Who knew estrogen was the one running the show this entire time.

As a recruiter, I'm on the phone daily with clients and candidates. There is nothing more humbling than chatting with a smart (much younger) female professional, who is articulate and can speak succinctly vs. me, a 52 yr old perimenopausal mess whose words have vacated her brain, with a vocabulary of a non-English speaking Duolingo user on week 3.  I is talking good to they.

And then our partners/husbands/males in our lives have no clue what was happening either. Surprise! You now live with someone, neither of us has ever met! God bless Randy for his level of patience these last few years.  I've been sending him "instructional videos" on Instagram in the hopes of educating him.  "You see, Randy... as the woman ages, her estrogen levels drop...." has been a common preamble in our house.

I know I'm getting older. There's a different person looking back at me in the mirror who I don't recognize. I look at my hands as I type, wondering whose hands these are, with the wrinkles and crinkly skin.  I push up my glasses with its most recent upgraded prescription and realize how bad my vision has gotten.  My ponytail has gotten thinner and my pants a bit tighter. My Peloton metrics have dropped and my cardio capacity has lessened. I typically need a nap around 2:30pm every day.

My medicine cabinet is filled with a plethora of serums and moisturizers and lotions; my kitchen filled with creatine, collagen, magnesium and a list of other supplements I was "influenced" to buy.  Anything to ward off the impending fate.

So I get it, my body is changing and I've been battling to be ok with it.  But I don't think we're struggling with aging but actually grieving the lost of a version of ourselves we didn't know we had to leave behind. The grief for a body that used to respond the way you expected, grief for the energy you used to have without needing a break, grief for losing someone who used to be fun and vivacious.  

While that all may sound shallow, it's ok to grieve that loss.

I may never have my 32 yr old body back or even my 44 yr old brain - she was good to me and was a lot of fun. I'll remember her fondly and reminisce our memories together. But she is gone and I can mourn that because I know on the other side, there is a stronger, more self-aware me who is finally comfortable in my skin.

For the record, I'm on estrogen, progesterone, testosterone - bring on ALL the HRT.  Get yourself a great GYN who is a proponent for women's health!