Tag Archives: menopause

Ch-Ch-Changes

Change is one of those realities of life that many of us are never ready for, no matter how often it creeps up and pounces.

Change of routine

Change of finanaces

Change of health

Change of school

Change of residence

Change of job…  Okay, I’m sure you get it.

Then there are the changes we long for but too often refuse to   let   make happen.

Change of attitude

Change of perspective

Change of heart

Change of health

Change of school

Change of residence

Change of job…

Sometimes I feel proficient at change.   I’ve done it enough!  Occasionally I even like it.

Generally, though, not so much.

My most recent changes have involved my kids growing up.  One is currently a gainfully employed adult still living in my home.  The other is a blossoming high school student who (like most 15 year olds) can forget that she doesn’t know everything.

As they get older…so do I.   And THAT is another of those changes that I’m having a love/hate thing with.

Then there’s menopause.   *que dramatic bass notes*

Menopause (aka The Change) illustrates the unfairness of this span of time we inhabit the earth.

If I were the master controller of the physical processes of a woman’s body as she ages I would decree menopause EASY and QUICK.  Nobody would endure 5-15 years of hot flashes, night sweats, muddle-brain and then up to a full year wondering if this most recent period was actually the last.

I would work it out so that a woman’s last period was obviously her last.   You know how obviously a pregnancy ends?   Yeah.   Something like that…but with no labor pains…and no baby  (just thought I should throw that in there, too).

The last period would be the signal for celebrations which would rival the grandest baby showers.  Younger women would dream of their last period with the same stupor that accompanies visions of their wedding.

Women living through the change would be respected and envied.

Menopause would be one of life’s greatest milestones.

Birds would sing brighter.  Butterflies would flit more flitter-ly.  All of nature would heave a collective sigh.

AND:   We’d get a reimbursement check for all of the money we spent replacing ruined undies!

 

 

 

 

My oddest Christmas Gift

I did not have an idyllic childhood. There were moments that were pure and sweet and others that were filled with raw gut-wrenching pain. I’m not suggesting that my childhood was uniquely bad, though. It was just not exactly stable. I don’t like mentioning it. It’s done. Nothing can change those years. My sweet Mother reads my blog and I know she wrestles with her own pain over how those years unfolded – so I don’t want to add fresh hurt for her either.

I’m not telling you any of this so that you’ll feel sorry for me or lash out with nasty comments about the choices my parents did/didn’t make. Stuff happens. Regrets remain. ’nuff said. I tell you these things simply because I needed to lay that out that backstory to give you some idea what must have been happening in my heart and mind as I faced this particularly memorable Christmas in the 1970′s.

During my early teens my Father remarried. While he continued to live and work rather far away from his new family, my brother and I spent a while living with neither of our parents and fending for ourselves (emotionally) while living under our Step-Mother’s roof. I choose to believe that she did care about my brother and I but with four kids of her own (two older than us and two younger) she had her hands full already.

Like any 13 year old girl, I was looking forward to Christmas. The only item on my wish list: curling iron. Nothing else. Just a curling iron. I was finally going to have that Farrah Fawcett hair!

It was about a week before Christmas, 1975, I had just turned 13 a few days earlier. A package arrived for my brother and I. It was from our Grandparents (Nanny and PawPaw). I pulled the individually wrapped gifts from the box placed them under the tree with the few other gifts that were there.

I shook the box that had my name on it. It was an odd rattling. Probably not a curling iron. *sigh* But I was good with that. My step mom had been told what I wanted and I felt pretty sure she’d come through.

Christmas morning arrives. I have my meager little pile next to me and I begin unwrapping one of two boxes that are most closely curling-iron-shaped. I decide to open Nanny and PawPaw’s first. Peeling back the wrapping I’m greeted by the face of Twiggy. Hmmm. “I wonder what this means. Perhaps they used a Twiggy box to confuse me. Very clever.”

Inside the box I find… a used set of steak knives. Oh yeah. I was confused alright!

At first I was as disappointed as any 13yo who had no interest in steak knives OR Twiggy. Within minutes I was giggling and then laughing over the ridiculousness of the situation. I’m not sure when I began to approach major disappointment this way. It’s one of the few things about myself that I wouldn’t change. The worse the situation the funnier I find it. The trivialities of an average day don’t have anywhere NEAR the same effect. Those have a way of producing a raging lunatic…or perhaps it’s these damnable menopause hormones (they get blamed for everything right now).

ANYWAY – back to Christmas. I did get the curling iron, some strawberry perfume, lip gloss, a flannel plaid shirt (yeah – that one was odd, too but doesn’t even come close to the steak knives) and a couple of Grateful Dead cassette tapes. So – while not a terrible Christmas it was definitely memorable.

What was your oddest Christmas gift?

Editing to add: I recently learned of this contest over at Hooked and Happy so I’m adding this post.

5 things about me

I talk too much

I do. Blogging is good because it forces me to edit out the nonsense (well…a lot of it anyway). Blogging saves my friends from having to listen to some of my yammering on those days when I am most intensely yamm-ish.

I may be menopausal

Yeah. Possibly TMI. Deal with it.

Being menopausal (or nearly so) doesn’t exactly terrify me. I’m not thrilled either. I think mostly I’m sad about it today. I’m in the process of mourning my youth. Be gentle with me.

My daughter has a friend who raised a sheep last year. She learned that a sheep is called a lamb for the first two year of its life and is referred to as a mutton after that. I haven’t verified these facts…I’m just telling you a little story.

ANYWAY.

My daughter and I recently saw a woman who was clearly too old to be trying to look as “hot” as she was trying to look and Batgirl just turned and said to me, in her quiet way, “Now there’s a mutton trying to be a lamb.” I laughed way too hard. Yet, I think she made a good point. I’m still wrestling with it.

I don’t believe I try to look “hot” so I think I’m safe on that count. But I’m still a little frazzled with this business of ‘age-appropriateness’. *sigh*

I cook because I have to. I do NOT enjoy it

Let me just hang in my sewing room while someone else takes care of the kitchen. PLEASE. Is it really necessary to eat every day? Really? Every day? *another sigh*

I hate being frugal.

*this sigh speaks entirely for itself*

dogmatism makes me catty

The older I get the less inclined I am to take a hard line on anything. Practically the instant someone begins with a “this is how it should be” sentence, I’ve walked away…either literally or mentally. Occasionally, though, I’m in exactly the wrong frame of mind and I will challenge said dogmatism. I usually regret it.

It’s not that I am afraid of conflict. I’ve just learned that some conflict is a stupid waste of my time. And conflict with someone who is “my way or the highway” is a surer waster of time. If they feel they’ve got God on their side then the time wasting goes up exponentially with each word uttered. That’s when I run.

So there you have it.

I have nothing more to say at this time.

Tell me something about you. That’s much more interesting.