Just because you're paranoid... doesn't mean you're not peri-menopausal
If I were a conspiracy theory kinda gal, that's what I'd think peri-menopause is -- a conspiracy.
No sooner do I reach a point in my career, where I can genuinely say, "I've made it," than my world starts to fall apart. Not all of it, mind you -- my professional life is solid, my domestic relationship is great and getting better all the time, and many of the life questions that had me at a loss when I was 20 years younger have been cleared up, either by experience or by highly-paid professional advisors.
But deep down inside, where no one can see, things are just plain going to hell. Maybe the rest of the world can't tell that my memory keeps slipping, or that my temper has become hot enough to melt glass, or that I haven't slept restfully and solidly through the night in more than a year... but I know. How I know. I've gained weight, despite working like a madwoman for 18 months on a Very Large Project at work. My temper's fuse grows shorter with each passing week. My fingernails seem uncharacteristically brittle, and although I haven't had to completely disrobe in a steaming sweat in public, I am starting to get hot flashes. What's more the hairs on my arm are turning darker and thicker than they've ever been. I'm not turning grey (yet), but instead, someone else's hair is growing in place of my own. All my life, I've had thin, fine brown hair. But now, suddenly, I have thick, black hair sprouting from my head. I've turned unaccountably dyslexic after a lifetime of rattling off numbers and spellings with no problem. And my period is definitely "out of whack" -- sometimes 3 weeks apart, sometimes 6 weeks, sometimes lasting for 10-14 days, with cramps setting in at completely different intervals than usual.
Yes, things are changing -- and disturbingly so, when I consider that I used to be able to set my calendar and clock by my periods, I've never had issues with spelling or number order in all my life, and my temper has never been this volatile or this violent. I've been to my doctor, and she's taken blood and checked my hormone levels. She assures me that everything is in the "acceptable range." But she's not living in my skin, finding herself suddenly incapable of doing so many things she took for granted for the first 40 years of her life. My doctor assures me that it could be stress-related, but I've got news for her -- six months after the Very Large Project completed, I've got less stress, but more symptoms than ever.
It's terribly unfair. I should be at the top of my game, right now. I've been out in the working world, honing my skills, for the past 18 years, and at this point in my life, by rights I should be ready to rocket skyward with all due haste. I'm very good at what I do, and I've got considerably more experience than many, if not most, of my co-workers. They look to me for guidance and assistance. They expect a great deal from me, not least of which are leadership and confidence. And yet, even as more certainty is demanded of me each day, I feel so many of the given certainties of my life slipping away... like the reason I walked into the room to-- what did I come here for...? My increasingly frequent forgetfulness, quite frankly, freaks me out. Perhaps paranoia is yet another symptom of this Change.
No, it's just not right. After ovulating for 27 years, I've finally gotten comfortable with my body's rhythms, but now it's decided to start marching to a different tune. My physical well-being is unpredictable at best, ephemeral at worst. My emotional health is a roller-coaster without safety rails on the seats. My ability to concentrate has eroded to the point where my mind simply stops thinking about a Very Difficult Question at just The Wrong Time. At a stage in my life, when I need to be at the peak of my physical, mental and emotional abilities, to compete in this economy and job market, my body is directly working against me. And it's only a matter of time until someone notices that my "lapses" have been going on for years, puts 2 and 2 together, and decides that maybe a younger, more predictable person would be better suited to my job. On the inside I cringe as my menopausal symptoms intensify, while on the outside I scramble to cover my change-of-life tracks.
I think this is why a lot of women -- especially professionals -- don't like to think or talk about menopause, unless we're pressed -- or we're in private. So many of us have had to work so hard, to get where we are, if we let on that we're "slipping" now (when market pressure and a fresh new workforce are threatening to edge us out of the way) it may jeopardize our ability to compete. It's bad enough that we're getting older -- I don't care what anyone says, getting older still carries more stigma for women than for men -- but we're getting genuinely less capable as well? The timing of menopause couldn't be worse. The professional world can be such a cut-throat arena, and the last thing we women need, after being told all our lives, "You can't do the job because you're a girl," is to have the prophecy actually come true when we're grown women. For me (and I imagine, for many other women), menopause is the fulfillment of my worst nightmares -- apparent proof positive that women really can't keep up with the Big Boys in the Big Bad World of Business.
But the myth about me "drying up and blowing away" as I go through the Change is just that -- a myth. And even if it does manifest, with thinning vaginal walls and less wetness during sex, so what? That's what steroid creams and K-Y are for. Menopause certainly isn't the first hurdle I've had to overcome on my climb to the top. I've had to deal with crippling PMS, unfair compensation, lacking work-life balance, stress-related illness, family traumas and deaths, discrimination, sexism, the albatross of cliches about "girls," and a host of other obstacles that haven't killed me, but have made me stronger. I've gone through plenty, and I've come out fighting on the other side, so a bunch of hormonal changes, however dramatic they may seem, don't really have the power to derail my career path. If women have collectively overcome the institutionalized roadblocks that stood in our way 20-30 years ago, and we've managed to make our presences known in the professional world, we can certainly overcome the challenges of menopause -- and become better persons as a result. And if billions of women have been going through this Change for aeons and didn't dry up and blow away, I can do just as well for myself.
Around me, the world spins on its regular course, with odd looks coming my way, now and then, when I "don't seem like myself." My daily abilities and responsibilities remain constant -- and increasing. My life is as eventful as ever, and now my body is joining in the fun. On the outside, everything's fine, while on the inside, a vast and deep-rooted conspiracy threatens to dislodge me from my position of respect and seniority, just as the next generation of movers and shakers are launching campaigns for my job... and the spectre of job offshoring threatens the livelihood which keeps my mortgage paid.
But like the quote says ... I think... "Youth and beauty are no match for age and experience."
I've been around too long and I've accomplished too much in my life, to start doubting myself now, ovulation or no. Like Sigourney Weaver in Alien II, strapping herself into the mechanical exoskeleton and readying to do battle with her nemesis, I say to my newly peri-menopausal life, Bring It On.
posted by Kay Stoner @ 8:15 PM
0 comments
