A note from Diane Bailey
You are in for a rare treat today. I asked my good friend, Robin Dance, to share a post with the ladies here at The Consilium. Robin is an excellent writer who shares from her heart and soul. She is funny and isn’t afraid to write about the less than pretty parts of her life, as well as the exciting and beautiful parts. This post is extra special because it is calling us to rally around those that are younger and haven’t experienced what we have. It is calling us to reach out…to hold their hand if needed…but, above all, to be community as we pass to the next stage. And that is one of our goals here at The Consilium. Enjoy…
It’s been a joke for years, a decade maybe, and it became stock answer for just about anything that ailed me–
chronic insomnia? menopause
uncharacteristic mood swings (For the one who never experienced PMS. Hate me.)? menopause
aggravating forgetfulness? menopause
Stub my toe, burn our dinner, bad hair day? menopause, menopause, menopause!
Except in my case, since I was in my 40s, people were more forgiving and added a “peri-” in front of it, I suppose to soften the inevitable. Menopause happened to old ladies with one foot precariously dangling over the grave, right?
Wrong. I was 49 when I received a call from my doctor’s office informing me I wasn’t pre-menopausal at all but, in fact, post-menopausal. Each month my body suggested a different story but hormones have a mind of their own and I’ve learned they do what they want to do, not what you think they’re supposed to do.
They win, they always win.
I wasn’t prepared for how I’d f e e l when I hit menopause, that there was anything TO feel beyond the relief to my pocketbook from not having to buy tampons anymore and the inconvenience of it all.
There’s much ado when a girl becomes a woman. We say that, don’t we? When a girl starts her period, she suddenly Becomes A Woman. So, using that logic, when a woman stops her period, she becomes a, what..?
Man? Reverts back to a girl? Old lady?
That call was a sucker punch. A solemness I didn’t recognize descended over me. I was suddenly different.
Not a blasted thing had changed, but in the wake of the official news – of me simply learning what had been the case for I don’t know how long – everything had changed.
I never saw any of it coming…a profound sense of loss, bone-deep sadness, inner conflict.
Tears were wrung from a tender place I previously hadn’t known existed. I was mourning a passing.
Maybe it’s because I fancy myself a rebel. When someone or some thing tries to box me in, I go all Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” (at least in my head I do).
I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you be the boss of me which is how I remember my mama. She was a scrappy country girl born poor who escaped to the city for a bigger life. A better one in some ways, but not all. She liked costume jewelry and pretty clothes and when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at 33, she gave it a defiant finger and lived five years longer than they told her she would.
She died at 38 and one of the things that makes me the maddest is she didn’t live long enough for her to teach me more about life, what to expect in season.
Now.
I bore three children and I knew beyond shadows and doubts when I was done, and being pregnant is absolutely, positively the last thing I’d want at my age and stage of life, but…
b u t…
b u t . . .
it no longer being my choice, an option, even a possibility??
Puts Baby in the corner.
The determinant that made me most thankful I was a woman, the miracle no man has ever known, the thrill I’ve known three times over–never to be again.
Silenced womb.
I don’t tell you these things to feel sorry for me or sad for me or anything for me–I don’t!
I tell you because to be armed with knowledge diffuses the strength of the unknown.
I tell you so one day you can anticipate potential feelings that arrived unexpected and unannounced to me.
So, I wallow just a little while and give myself time to get used to the idea, what it means. And let me tell you this:
It means something good:
If you or I have the privilege of walking this season – and make no mistake, lovies, it is a privilege because days have been granted to us many will never see – it means we’ve lived long enough to experience it. Cause enough for celebration.
We fear the unknown, don’t we? And isn’t that why we approach menopause with some measure of dread? The last time our bodies were ransacked by hormones, our mamas and sisters and friends were holding our hands and walking with us and they made sure we understood what was going on and what to expect. It was a big deal made smaller because of the natural community that surrounded us.
Which I’m realizing as I write this is beautiful remedy for the Second Change. I missed this–the need for intergenerational community. I have so many amazing younger women in my life, but few who are just ahead of me, who can hold my hand and make sure I understand what is going on with my body and what to expect, those who can make this big deal a small one.
This is your wake up call.
This is me holding your hand.
This is my beginning to a New Thing, to recognizing great value where I am, when I am.
A celebration.
A very special 78-year-old person in my life said it this way: “Do you realize if you’ve gone through these changes, you’re one of the lucky ones? Not everyone makes it. Your mama didn’t. What you have is today and something beautiful can be made of it.”
If you haven’t already, seek out women just a few steps ahead of you in life and begin a friendship of mutual love and service to one another. Be intentional, be bold, be brave. Give from your void, give from your plenty.
Don’t fear your future, anticipate its goodness and be thankful for all things. Because, despite pain and hardship and void and loss, life is good.
So, my friends, when your body catches fire from hormonal kerosene? Strip to your skivvies, consider the alternative, stand in front of an open freezer, and dust off that old mantra you used to chant (and everyone would tell you) when your babies were little and rubbing raw every nerve, “This, too, will pass.”
Because if you’re lucky enough, one day it will.
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Latest posts by Robin Dance (see all)
- Menopause: A New Beginning a guest post by Robin Dance - February 21, 2017
Thanks for sharing, Robin! I’m 55 and am “still going strong”! But, I’ve noticed major changes, especially in the hormonal/emotional department. It’s frustrating, especially when I forget for a few hours or a day why I’m unexplainably emotional, and then, slowly figure it out again. Both of my sisters when through menopause in their mid 40’s. (Just one day, it stopped). My mother, not until 60! (No side-symptoms other than a flushed red nose periodically!) So, I don’t really know when things will finish up in that department for me, nor what else (besides emotional upheaval) I should expect. However, I do get afraid. I fear that I’ll somehow be different… and that I won’t want to, well, you know. Thanks for the reminder that this is a normal thing and that we are blessed to live through each stage of our lives!
Robin, I love this. It’s what I beleive whole-heart as well. God is never finished with us especially in this new season.
Smiling at so much of your vivid expression here, Robin. For me, menopause went by in a blur. With two teens, two younger kids, and my elderly mother living with us at the time, it was all over before I ever knew what hit me. In hind sight now, I realize that some of the things that I was experiencing as a three-alarm fire were probably being fed by estrogen instead of gasoline.
I started taking Tamoxifen 4 years ago as a precaution against breast cancer. Doctors found atypical cells which could be pre-cancerous. One of the side effects was menopause, within a month or so of taking it. Almost immediately, no more periods. Even though I didn’t mind not having periods, I did mourn losing my sense of womanhood. It’s that feeling something’s changed and it will never be the same again. My mom had breast cancer too but she was lucky to be diagnosed at 75.
Yes, every day is a gift to treasure!
Fun post Robin. Thank you for taking the time to share here. Your humor is so intertwined with some deeper raw emotion…. tied together with the truth that this new season of life to be cherished. Every day of life really is a gift. I’m one who would have loved to actually go through the “peri” and the “post” of menopause. Breast cancer put me on the unwelcome track of treatments and surgeries that changed so much. Today I’m deeply grateful for life. Grateful for the sweetness of this season. There are so many I want to love in the time I have remaining.
I sit here in the bathroom waiting and watching my 89 year old mother in law take a long well loved bath. I watch her slowly move almost gracefully holding feminity as a treasure (is my lipstick fine, does this blush make me look like a clown and make sure my socks match my pjs). Menopause is a right of passage and a freedom of sorts as the body releases the hormones in gratefulness – “thank you, she says. “You’ve done well now lets enter a new phase and be all we can be. This is what you were
Made for and you did well.”
Thank you, Robin for your wise and encouraging words. I come from a family that didn’t (and still doesn”t) really talk about “feminine issues”. It is always a consolation and a balm to my soul to hear someone else say “me too!” I am almost 53 and the “peri” part started about 7 years ago; the “post” about 2 1/2 years ago.
Thank you, Robin. I can relate so much to your post. I feel “lost” sometimes in this season of life. Childhood is a sea of hope, young and mid adulthood is a sea of busy purpose, post menopause is a sea of despair, confusion and internal infernos. The key is gratefulness and seeking God constantly, as well as communicating well with your spouse!
I cannot say enough good things about the books of women’s health pioneer Dr. Christiane Northrup MD. Her books have carried me through pre- peri and menopause. Specifically to this topic is The Wisdom of Menopause.