Share Those Secrets, Sisters

It wasn’t too many nights ago that I told my husband I was going to bed. It was just after 9:00. His answer, “I understand.”

My thought was that he really doesn’t understand, but I wouldn’t say that to him, and I didn’t, because he does try to be understanding of these things, both old and new, that I experience as a female in her mid 40s.

It has come to my attention lately that not only does my husband not truly understand, but I didn’t really understand initially either. And now I know that many, many women actually don’t understand what lies ahead as it relates to the “change of life.”

Nearly all of have sat through a health class or have taken a basic biology class. We know about primary and secondary sex characteristics, puberty, and menstruation. And we’ve been told what will happen when we get older, basically, our period will stop, and we will no longer be able to have children. The common, and oversimplified, perception of menopause outside of biology classes is that women will have hot flashes and mood swings. 

According to the Mayo Clinic, menopause is diagnosed after there have been no menstrual periods for 12 consecutive months with no other biological or physiological cause identified. Currently, the average age for menopause in the United States is 51.

While menopause is actually the conclusion, the process is termed perimenopause. The word literally means “around menopause,” and is defined by the Mayo Clinic as being “the time during which your body makes the natural transition to menopause marking the end of reproductive years.” The Mayo Clinic also refers to this process as the menopausal transition.

I try to find the most reliable and valid resources from which to learn about issues that are important to me, thus I generally find the content believable. And I had read and heard that many women are not aware of what is coming their way.

I am one of the fortunate ones who was aware of this little secret prior to my entering transition.

I have a friend a few years older than me who is not shy about sharing information and resources regarding women’s health issues. And, even though she didn’t name it at the time, my doctor also had told me even before I had turned 40 that my hormones had already started to change when I had asked her about some short lived but unusual spotting in my late 30s.

While at a dinner meeting on a recent Monday evening, we were discussing the editorial content for a healthcare publication that was in the works. As we pitched in with suggestions, women’s health issues arose as a topic. At almost the same time, my husband and I said “perimenopause.”

A young woman at the table, who had said during small talk over the meal, that she would celebrate her 30th birthday before year’s end, said, “What is perimenopause?”

I shared with her briefly what I have shared here, and that perimenopause can begin as early as one’s 30s, but generally begins in one’s 40s and can last anywhere between a few months to ten years. I also shared a little bit about both what I have read and what I have experienced. It’s a fascinating experience (sarcasm font) with a diverse list of symptoms that make PMS look like a beach day, and that one woman who wrote a blog post on the subject described as closely mimicking pregnancy.

This woman, whose blog post was published by Huffington Post, said that she had also never heard of perimenopause so when she began to experience insomnia, racing heart, anxiety, and growth in her breasts and mid-section in her 40s, she thought she might be pregnant. She took a pregnancy test that showed a negative result. She said that her doctor’s nurse stopped her mid question during a phone call and told her about perimenopause. 

Having never been pregnant, I didn’t have that frame of reference. And having actually heard of perimenopause, when I began having periods off schedule (I had been quite normal for many years in adulthood), increases in anxiety – seemingly above and beyond what I’d struggled with in the past, an increase in breast size, excessive bloating and tummy “fat,” I thought maybe my transition was coming.

I actually missed a period in June. I remember the month because we had a wedding to attend out of town. And as nearly every woman has done, I had counted the days to see if this formal event might be negatively impacted by a period because planned to wear a dress with a good deal of white and lilac to the event. As I’ve mentioned, my cycle had changed some, from 28 days to about 23 to 25 days so I was hoping for earlier than later to avoid “issues” while dressed for the wedding and reception. 

For the wedding, and in general, I was thrilled to skip a period, and I was naively saddened when I had an odd one, but definitely a period, the following month. My husband had asked me if I thought it would just turn off like a faucet.

I remember answering him honestly, “Well, no…I don’t know exactly what I thought.”

It was then that I realized what a time of flux this really is, and how challenging it has been and will likely continue to be.

I’ve read, and I know from personal connections, that this time of transition can be difficult for women who have had children, or who have wanted to, and realize that giving birth will no longer be possible in the future. For me that is not an issue. My sense of loss comes in the form of wanting my young body back.

Seriously, I’d even take my 40-year-old body back. It wasn’t until about 45 that I really started to think that I am aging. I wrote about some of those changes to my body and challenges to my life in last week’s blog post https://lorieabeardsley.wordpress.com/2019/08/23/embracing-lifes-autumn/

The point of this post is to say that, while I was at least familiar with the term perimenopause and what it meant to an extent, I still had a great deal to learn about what lies ahead. 

To an extent, it will be different for each of us because we are each unique, but we as women need to be more willing to talk not only about perimenopause and menopause but about all of the subjects that are relevant to our health, all of those subjects about which we tend to be quite guarded at times. We certainly need to talk with our doctors. If you aren’t comfortable talking about concerns like this, find a different doctor. 

In days gone by, women didn’t discuss these things openly, and I’m not advocating for having a conversation about antidepressants versus feminine herbs to relieve common symptoms at your next staff meeting at work, or vaginal dryness on your next trip to the theater. The topic came up in context at the meeting I mentioned, and the discussion was quite brief.

When we’re together with our friends, and hopefully we have intergenerational friendships, or our sisters, aunties, cousins, or whoever we feel confident sharing our intimate details with though, lets share. Let’s share what we have learned from reliable sources so that we can help each other be informed and prepared. And let’s share what we’re dealing with so other women don’t feel isolated on their journeys through the emotional, stressful, painful, and outright weird things that happen throughout the entire journey of womanhood.

 

 

 

 

Embracing Life’s Autumn

“And now, summer’s come and gone, and the nights they seem so long….”

Though the unofficial end of summer is still about a week away with the upcoming celebration of Labor Day weekend, those words sung by Paul Davis in that mellow vibe of 70s that carried into the early 80s began to echo in my mind recently as I noticed the changes in light and shadows and to feel the cooler evenings as the transition from summer to autumn begins.

Summer will officially conclude in late September, but for me this time of year reminds me of when I went back to school and of looking forward, or not, to the first day of classes in late August – prior to Labor Day.

As I thought about those back to school days, I realized it has been ten years since I embarked on what I had hoped would be the beginning of a new chapter for me. It was in August of 2009 that I started classes at WCC, after having graduated with my first Bachelor’s degree, in commercial writing, almost 15 years prior.

I remember that first morning at WCC so very clearly. My husband had to drop me off on campus early so he could get to work. I sat outside on a bench on a cool – almost chilly for late August – morning, and I took in the beauty of it. The sun made ribbons of light through some deep green trees, but that light and shadow pattern, and the crispness of the air definitely whispered hints of autumn.

I didn’t feel the anxiety of being in school again, already so far into adulthood, on that morning; I just felt excitement. I was ready to turn the page from writer to exercise scientist – whatever that would mean for me.

Of course I did have ideas about what a degree in exercise science could, and should, do for me. But now ten years later, those ideas are merely a series of only temporary successes and several failed attempts to create a new career for myself.

Though the majority of the expenses for my earning the Associates degree in exercise science from WCC were covered, the investment we made into my pursuing the Bachelor’s degree in exercise science from EMU has likely still not paid for itself.

During this past winter, while we were having a rather difficult conversation, my husband told me that I am not the same person I was – at some specific point in my past.

As I think back ten years ago. I can certainly acknowledge that I am definitely not that excited and energetic person I was my first day of classes at WCC.

I believe that on that morning, and through much of that experience, I was actually able to recapture some of my youth. I had that hope again, and that belief that I could do something pretty awesome with this life I was given.

Ten years later, not only have I long since lost that briefly regained youthful exuberance, but I have also had to try to come to terms with my aging female body. I am different in so many ways from that 30 something women.

Having had to stop running, probably permanently this time, due to back and ankle issues, and having now certainly entered perimenopause I barely recognize myself in the mirror.

If you’re familiar with the “Bra Size Alphabet,” (Google it) I was a “barely” for most of my life and was pretty happy with that. Even the relatively light amount of running, and cross training, that I did compared to athletes and more aggressive “weekend warriors” in my sport allowed for a lowered body fat percentage. But when I had to take breaks from and now stop running, it is like a friend had once said, “I gain all of the weight in my boobs.” I seem to have passed “can’t complain,” and have gone directly to “dang” – and not in a good way in my opinion.

Actually all of the weight gain hasn’t been in my chest. It seems to settle at my midsection, somehow fitting for midlife. The clothes that once hung loose on a runner’s frame now hug the curves that I’m not quite ready to embrace.

The days of going into my closet and feeling excited, and a little smug, that I could wear anything I wanted for date nights are over, replaced by the resigned search for what will fit on this particular evening. For those who aren’t here yet, those three or four days of water weight gain pre or during menstruation are now whenever days of water weight gain.

I find myself not only living with a body I don’t recognize, but a person as a whole who I don’t recognize.

Now I sit and wait, but I used to create a plan and do whatever I could to implement it. I went blazing forward, moving, changing, trying to keep life interesting. I had once made a commitment to try one new thing a year, and for several years, I did. But recently I’ve been looking back, seeing the debris from burned bridges and feeling stuck in a deep rut.

I have a significant sense of remorse over some of the decisions I made, especially those that cost money and haven’t paid off like EMU. Not much is going on at the present moment with my “career” either except for some “new and exciting” freelance work that keeps getting pushed back. 

I also cling to a little shining hope that our future plans to move and make a new start closer to my family and some of his, his grandkidos included, may come together while they still can. 

Yes, I have attempted to make the present more than just a holding pattern, to see a new career rise from the ashes. I have so many paragraphs, sentences, and words circulating in my head, but when I try to write I have absolutely nothing to say. I have three specific blog site ideas, and a legitimate idea for an advertiser for one of them. But I don’t seem to have the confidence to know which one to actually launch, and I don’t know that I have the faith to believe that any one of them will succeed.

I’ve thought about the “unfinished business” I have with swimming, my long-standing desire to complete a sprint triathlon, or my thought that since I can’t run I could start skating again. All of those things cost money though, and that I do not have a lot of at this moment.

My days and time still seem to fill up. Houses and husbands need time and effort. Staying as active and healthy as possible while aging takes more time and effort as well. But during my downtime not too long ago, I was watching a TEDx presentation, on menopause.

The speaker was telling women that, while it was not her intention to downplay physical and psychological symptoms of menopause. she realized, because of the comment of a younger women who had told her that she seemed to be very smart at this point in her life, that she was indeed smarter now than at any point previously. She said she knew what she wanted, and she knew what she didn’t.

One thing I have always enjoyed about living in Michigan is the change of seasons. Whereas spring seems to push me forward with a strong sense of wander lust, and summer still seems like it should be lazy and kind of crazy, autumn has been a kind of grounding time for me as it is the time when school begins and focus and routines return.

With this change of season, and now that I have taken some time to reflect on the changes in me, I plan to use these shorter days to make yet another new start. Initially I thought that I could recapture that lost youth one more time, but after hearing the TEDx speaker I believe I am not in need of it. I plan to go forward working to accept that 40 something woman that I am, to embrace it with all of its challenges and benefits, and to work within that context to create something productive exactly where I am.