Picture it. 50+something, medium-build, short stature, blond highlighted curly hair that “may” be self-trimmed, growing bunions, feet comfortably plodding along in the latest UGG sandal/slipper hybrid, estradiol patch peaking out of her Knix brand running/bike shorts. She is half-smiling. Perhaps, she was beaming a moment ago, after a brief moment of joy, because she had witnessed a kind interaction between strangers on the sidewalk. Her mind harkened back to familiar such exchanges from the 90s, when pedestrians weren’t walking while texting their adult children/doctor/elderly parent who lost their hearing aids. It’s possible the moment of joy had to do with noticing the picturesque sky on her walk home from work or being happy she made it home without feeling like she had to stop somewhere to pee.
The brief tinge of joy is interrupted by a reminder by her right hip that she needs to do those static stretches this evening while watching TV with her husband. She was reminded by her fitness coach the day before that, in addition to the active pre-running stretches, it’d be best to also add in static stretches in the evening. The coach also suggested toe spacers to where around the house for those bunions. This was before she PR’d her dead lift and felt momentarily indestructible.
After feeling indestructible, she went to the office, where she was reminded, what indestructibleness looks like in one’s late 20s and early 30s. She wondered where those young professionals, with impressive resumes, would take their skills next, when they deemed it a good time to move on. She wondered if there were any places left to take her skills and “use her full potential”. She also wondered when she would next be able to lie on a grassy field and stare at the blue sky for an indeterminant amount of time.
She wondered again, as she had dozens of times this month, whether she should rip the estradiol patch off and forget the whole HRT business. She is never quite sure it’s making much of a difference. She’s still cranky as shit, sometimes, depending on what day the patch was stuck on her butt. She feels bloated 3 or 4 days a week, for no apparent reason, probably from the progesterone to offset the estradiol, but also, maybe just because she’s in menopause. If she goes off HRT, but keeps the vagifem, because the benefits of the vagifem seem to make more sense than anything else, will she get the head spins back? The vertigo that makes her wobble when walking or running and which may or may not have anything to do with menopause. Will her moods get better or worse? Should she take an SSRI? Should she re-think her understanding that alternative methods are not adequately studied and can carry significant risk, because, what IF those alternative methods would make her feel better and put her mind at ease about cancer risks, but really, we are all at risk of cancer if we live long enough anyway.
What if she’s actually doing just fine? What if she spent more time looking for quiet spaces to think (about love, creativity, agency, new ways to use her brain, new ways to make a living, her growing belief that the mechanism of boycotting small businesses about larger issues is classist and not effective for the intended purpose) – maybe there would be no need for patches or alternative supplements? She reminds herself of all the people who inspire her and which inspiration has nothing to do with their appearance and wonders how they managed this stage of life (if they’ve reached it yet or ever did).
In the meantime, she’ll keep being grateful for experiencing all these changes. She’ll seesaw between being happy with her changing face and wondering if she can get a facial that will freshen her eye area so she doesn’t look tired but that doesn’t look like she’s had work that just needs to be done over and over and over again. She’ll continue to find lots of moments of joy with her husband, with her family and friends and when she gets those endorphin rushes from exercise.
Catherine wrote about The “Menopause Gold Rush”: a boom for telehealth, still largely a bust for the rest of us today and this inspired me to put some of these thoughts down.
What do you think? Should I be a Menopause Brand Ambassador?
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