There should be some rite of passage for women who finally make it through menopause. It is a magnificent time, well worth marking and I have absolutely no idea why traditional society, at best, ignores it. If anything, most women, at least those held up in medical journals and magazine articles about the subject, are depicted as rather forlorn, sickly creatures who need to take hormone replacement or watch their diets. Most are seen as being over the hill and out to pasture. How sad that is.
Sad because, nothing could be further from the truth. And I will explain why.
First there was the actual physical suffering of menses for me when I was fifteen and realized, short of the need for a radical hysterectomy, I would have to go through this agony every month for the next 35 years plus! I can still remember my mother applying a hot water bottle on one side and a warmed iron wrapped in a threadbare towel on the other, in hopes the heat would somehow diminish the cramps which ravaged my body between my knees and my shoulders - I kid you not; it was that bad. When Mom told me to try to walk up and down the stairs, saying that exercise might lessen the cramps, I distinctly remember thinking. "Sure I will walk once this monster inside me stops trying to digest my organs..." or something to that effect. It hurt like heck and then some. What's more, that was before the invention of Tylenol, so I had no medical solution until much later.
Then there were the emotional mood swings. Need I go into details? Sometimes I even locked myself in the bathroom, in hopes that my need to yell at someone for extended periods of time would pass. I was Dr. Jekyll and Miss Hyde all over. Hated it.
Furthermore, there is the expense of supplies. It adds up and I always seem to run out of something at the most inopportune moments. And, when I was really young, there was this question of embarrassment. I can't tell you how many teen girls risked the wrath of even the strictest teachers to lean over and ask me, in a whisper, if they walked up to the pencil sharpener at the front of the classroom, could I please tell them if their feminine protection was leaving a "dent" in their jeans. Now, c'mon. You've done it too. You know you have.
And that was well before peri-menopause started. That time in a woman's life where she experienced all kinds of unusual, freaky symptoms like night sweats, cravings, severe insomnia, hot flashes and even more severe mood swings than previously - I mean, could they possibly get worse? And, for most, that time can start anywhere after the age of 30. In the midst of raising young children, for most, and even just starting a family for others. Is it any wonder most of us have "mother" issues?
I digress.
I haven't even gotten into the years of actual child bearing and what all that means to most of us. What we tolerate in the interests of propagating the species is downright cruel and unusual punishment and to top it off, most of us are told by well meaning parents, usually other women, we need to learn to suck it up and put up with a whole lot of crap, essentially, because, as women, we are born to suffering and we had better get used to it. The bottom line is there seems to be some kind of "paying our dues" conspiracy among women who share genetic material and that remains fodder for another article at another time.
Suffice to say, once we are closing in on our late 40s, most of we women are downright tired of and thoroughly peed off at this little "visitor" who has made our lives miserable for the past several decades and we happily anticipate a time when we can ignore that aisle in the grocery store where men fear to tread.
And then it happens. With very little notice, or sometimes not, it just disappears, as if it never even occurred and we are left wondering what all the fuss was about. Just like that. Gone.
Honestly? After having watched other women go through it all over the years, I don't know why there is not some kind of menopausal club or something. Really. Cause there should be; by George, we've earned it!
And then I remember.
I remember things like my mother's 45s club, which met every Tuesday. I remember all those ladies, well past the point of no return, who showed up whenever Mom would have her week of hosting and I get it. They all wore unforced smiles and I think nary a one was self-conscious about her standing or appearance. They'd scratch when and where they pleased, even belch on occasion and told the funniest, crass jokes a lady could get away with. The laughter ensued was honest, loud and confident too. I decided, even back then, I liked this age. There was just something special about these ladies.
They had arrived.
So now, I too, have arrived. I care very little if I offend, yet, share my two cents as tactfully as possible, when asked, just out of habit. Some kind of magic has left me totally indifferent to the opinions and void of needing the approval of others and that just feels really good. To top it off, I have concluded if my husband is still with me at this age, it isn't because I am drop dead gorgeous, so I have nothing to fear. I realize if he can have a pot belly, so can I.
Bottom line? I feel better, physically, mentally and emotionally than I have ever felt at any stage of my life and that discovery is blowing me away.
In summation, the way I look at it, perhaps that fanfare I referred to earlier is really all about a secret society that needs no public acclamation or corporeal recognition. Maybe just having survived what came before ushers all women into this unique place of contentment and wonder, to which they silently welcome new sisters as they walk over that final barrier called menopause. Where celebration happens daily in the lives of each woman who arrives and the giving of trophies and accolades involves skilled perception, honed over time and with each act of learning and sacrifice.
Either way, I can say with aplomb, it's a wonderful place to be.
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