"change of life"

Ageing never held any fear for me. There was never anything about being grey and getting wrinkles that scared me. 

Here's the thing: lately, I am not so sure: 

I am middle-aged, late forties. Okay, I am 48 and rapidly approaching 49. Through the years, I have managed, through fucking hard work, to at least keep fit, mostly healthy, most of the time maintaining an OK weight. I should feel good and be enjoying life…, but yet, here I am, belly-aching.

Going through the process holds some of its own charms, or maybe they can be called non-charms. Funny things start happening, some are indeed funny -“Ha-ha” and others are more funny-"peculiar".

The fun of “peri-menopause” - a fancy word for some undignified, some funny and some strange shit that happens to a woman whose eggs are singing their farewell song, while her oestrogen is raging its last storm before it is all supposed to settle in years of calm.

Here are a few choice developments:

My neck skin is slowly getting saggy… maybe I will also arrive at the point - in the words of Austin Powers’ Fat-Bastard - when it is looking like a vagina.

The corners of my mouth make me look permanently disapproving. One day, I spotted a sour looking old bitch in the shop window at the mall, and was about to wonder about her, when I realized it is none other than myself. My daughters call it the “resting bitch face”.  I have über “resting bitch face”.

My eyebrows have long since mostly said goodbye and the long eyelashes I had, have now disappeared. Throw in the periods from hell and the iron deficiency and now the consequent hair-loss. Is that dignified?

Lately I have been all ‘funned’ out by the hot flashes, the bad sleep, and water retention, being as weak as a baby in the gym. I mean, really?

I cannot really put a time and date to it, but for me it started somewhat before my 40^th birthday, I just didn't know it. It started with ….the unbearable night time-itching. I cannot count the number of allergy tests, blood tests, skin tests, you name it. All of it with no real results. Until I read somewhere that it is one of the lesser known things that start with the fancy “peri-menopause”.

My mom used to make comments about being middle-aged or ageing, like “When you start ageing, your eye lashes start falling out and you end up looking like a chicken” or, “Even your pubic hair starts getting sparse”. Or, “what has to be wet goes dry, and what has to be dry, is wet all the time”. You can put your own imagination or interpretation to that one. I didn't get it then.

She was a grand old lady, and I never realized what the “change of life” might have meant for her - until now. She died four years ago and I never got to share with her the knowledge I am accumulating rapidly. I miss her desperately, and would have loved to share, because she would have understood.