Menopause Is Not a Dirty Word, Neither is Period

I've asked the question before...Why is it so hard for everyone, especially men, to talk about periods? If it weren't for periods, humans wouldn't exist. It's an important part of the life cycle, yet most people are embarrassed to talk about it. That's why it was so awesome that a documentary, Period. End of Sentence won an Oscar at this last Academy Awards. It's about Indian women in a village coming together to find more affordable menstrual products.

The same way that nobody likes to talk about periods nobody likes to talk about when women stop having them. As if menopause and period are dirty words, which they aren't. It's society who has made both such a taboo subject, along with aging and so many other things that affect women.

Me after the Chicago show in NYC, March 2019, age 49

Like pretty much everybody else I only post flattering pictures of myself on social media. I usually delete the ones where I look older because of how tired I am, the angle or bad lighting. (laughing) All reasons that don't admit that I am actually getting older. Here is one that I didn't post when Miranda and I went to NY in early March. In a nutshell this picture looks very different from the one I used when I talked about aging last time in a 2017 blog post or even the one that I posted recently at the Rodeo. This is me in perimenopause.

The blog post in 2017 was also the last time I mentioned perimenopause. Since that blog was written a year and a half ago I have officially become a member of the club, vetted by my primary care physician and all. When I wrote the blog in 2017 I was having weird long periods and then skipping. Then in August of 2018 I had my last period. I had blood work done and my doctor confirmed that I was in fact in the throes of perimenopause. The interesting thing about menopause and the medical community is that they require a full 12 months without a period to consider you in actual menopause. Therefore I am still in perimenopause and every month I pray that I stay there until August of 2019. I'm halfway there!

I had one friend who went 10 months without a period and then had a huge one so her doctor said that she had to start the countdown all over again. Two months later she had another period and she's been so sad. I would feel the same way.

The thing is this. Once we are done with having children we don't need a period anymore. We're good and we wish our bodies knew this too. I am so thrilled at the prospect of never having a period again. However I also consider myself really lucky because I'm having a much easier time than some.

I remember hearing my mother talking about "the change," "el cambio de la vida," in hushed tones with my aunt Lola. She was around my age. Then later as I got older she told me she had never had hot flashes or any of the symptoms she heard and read about.

It turns out I'm more like my mom than I thought. The change has been very subtle in some areas and not in others. I haven't had the horrible hot flashes like my sister, but I have had anxiety, forgetfulness and waking up in the middle of the night. I toss and turn and can't go back to sleep for at least an hour. Since my mother already had a bad temper I wonder if she realized that menopause could be making her more anxious. I remember being 10 years old and not wanting to tell her things or approaching her very cautiously because I didn't want her getting mad at me.

I do a serenity prayer in the morning when I'm pulling out of the driveway and I'm feeling anxious and overwhelmed. The other day when I did one my son asked how I could be feeling anxiety so early in the morning. That's when it hits me the hardest, in the mad rush of getting out of the house.

Unfortunately a lot of women suffer from everything, the hot flashes, the mood swings, the anxiety, the forgetfulness, the vaginal dryness and they don't know why. Because nobody really prepared them for all of this. Generation X has it worse because so many of us work and we carry so much more than previous generations. Some have kids while helping care for elderly parents, like I was a year and a half ago.

I read an article recently by Aileen Weintraub on Huffington Post about what nobody tells you about what happens to your body. I feel that the reason people don't talk about it more is because of this stigma that we've put on talking about periods and our bodies. There's an excellent piece called The New Midlife Crisis by Ada Calhoun on oprah.com that also discusses perimenopause about halfway through it.

These are great pieces, and a start, but we have to do better. We have to stop hiding behind old-fashioned curtains and we have to get over the discomfort we feel when talking about our bodies. I tell my own kids, "Do not be embarrassed about talking about the human body. Humans exist because of periods." Yes, they've told me to stop and asked me why I'm so weird when I say things like this but I'm not going to stop and neither should any of us. We need to keep the discourse going, writing articles and making movies, until it's not something to be ashamed of, but something we can talk about to our sons and daughters so that they in turn can talk to future generations.

My Body is Changing, I'm Getting Older

I'm officially past 47.5 now. I hit the halfway mark last month. It was at 47 that I started feeling my body change and looking in the mirror and seeing the changes in my face, in my skin. I'm getting older. I love a quote that says, "Do not regret growing older. It's a privilege denied to many."

Me at 34 and 47. 

In the top picture I had just had Seth. I sure bounced back pretty quickly at that age! I was still young enough to have kids and my face looks radiant, like someone who just created a life. In the bottom picture, taken a few months ago, most people would say I still look great. Believe me, I appreciate it. I know I look younger than some people my age. However, I also know the reality that I'm growing older.

I feel like we aren't always allowed to talk about aging. Either people are embarrassed to acknowledge it or we're told to shut up, age is just a number, be grateful for what you have, etc.  I get both those points of view. Sometimes aging is the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. And I get being grateful. My older sister passed away at 42, my mom at 69, and I've had family, friends and acquaintances who have died young. I get that I should be grateful to be alive and I AM. I try to practice gratitude every day and I think about something that I'm grateful for.

None of this changes the fact that I am getting older and that yes, it is happening to me. I don't know why it's such a big deal to acknowledge that. It's a fact. It's happening to all of us and there's nothing we can do about it. I find it hilarious that even the word "perimenopause" is highlighted in red on this blog program as if the word doesn't even exist. Yes, it's real and all women with two ovaries and a uterus are going to go through it.

I miss my mom. I miss being able to ask her questions about menopause and when did she first see the signs. All I can do is try and remember events and conversations I overheard from my childhood and I do the math as to how old she was then. I guess she started heading towards menopause at 47 based on a very clear memory I have of her having an embarrassing incident out in public. I remember conversations I overheard about her going through "the change." I was around 8 years old and that would make her 47. I'm 47.

They say that often women start menopause around the same time as their mothers. Based on that math I'm pretty much on target and I can feel the signs. There's the irregular periods, the super long periods that don't make sense, and how hot my body feels sometimes. I've never been irregular since I started having kids at 31. That was something that used to happen to me in my teens and early 20s.

Of course all this has to happen right when my OBGYN of over 20 years retires. So I went to see my primary care physician right after a two week long period. She sent me for blood work to see if I was pre-menopausal but instead of focusing on that she was distracted by other things she wanted to check, like my blood sugar and my cholesterol. When she called me with my results she told me those and then promptly hung up. I had to call her back to ask her, "Hey, what about menopause?" She had forgotten that was the main reason I had gone in. (Once again I wished that Dr. Miro hadn't retired.) She told me that the blood work didn't show signs of pre-menopause. She had already said to me in the office that if that was the case she recommended that I find a new OBGYN. Exactly what I didn't want to have to do.

I know my body. I know what's happening. I'm so ready for it too! I'm ready to embrace this new phase of my life. I just wish it didn't come with the discomforts that come along with it. Like why do I have to feel warm all of a sudden? And why do I have to feel anxiety? Nobody told me that was a side effect until now. It's either one of those secrets or one of those things I ignored when it didn't pertain to me. Surprise! As I've gotten older I started feeling anxiety and I didn't know why. It probably started a couple of years ago, well now that I'm moving towards menopause I feel it even more. Apparently it's the hormones.

Then there's my face. I look at myself in the mirror when I'm washing my face or putting on my make up and I can see the elasticity of my skin changing. It's so weird! I see it in some pictures more than others. I see the skin under my eyes has changed too.  I think, "Here I am. I'm getting older." And it's amazing. Where did my youth go? It was over in the blink of an eye.

In the words of Colette all I can say is, "I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer." I will just have to roll with it and ride this crazy wave.