Menopassé

It’s over. The finality is experienced as a series of juddering halts. There is a drawer full of pads and tampons that you try to palm off on friends, unsuccessfully, till they (the pads and tampons, not the friends) were finally emptied into a package of supplies for African and Indian students fleeing Ukraine. The moon cup is still knocking around somewhere in its cute pink and purple drawstring bag in a box of things from Berlin. You cannot really give someone your moon cup and the thing is, I never really used it. I tried to. But I think the mooncup entered my reproductive life too late. I had one evening of contorting myself into awkward positions to fit it in, unsuccessfully. I was never hippie enough, I figured. Or maybe it was not having pushed a baby out? Some child-free friends chided me- they had absolutely no problems making the more sustainable choice. It was just a matter of mind over vulva. I was jealous of this freedom they said they enjoyed but was also grossed-out by the notion of a cup of blood hanging around inside. I know. I know! It’s like that Douglas Adam quote about when a technology enters your life: normalized if you’re 15, can be integrated reasonably well and efficiently in early work life if you’re 25, and absolutely impossible to fully grok past 35 or thereabouts. I was 37. So I soldiered with the body horror of the tampon. (Strictly in unbleached cotton).

There are no unwelcome pimples popping up. Your hair feels drier.

I cannot say anything about changes in irritability and mood swings because I have always been irritable, quick to anger and quick to cool down, and moody AF.

The mental fog takes your breath away with its brutality. More on in another post.

Early one morning in February 2020 I suddenly jerked awake in an air-conditioned hotel room in Palo Alto because my entire back was sticky with sweat. I am not a sweat-er, and the sensation is very unsettling. It is not the jet lag, I realised, when it happened again the following month. And then the pandemic lockdowns began.

I was writing my PhD. The George Floyd killing happened. I began to lose a sense of where my body ended and the rest of the world began. I felt my solidarity with other humans trying to evade the virus. I felt like I was dissolving into the internet, becoming digital. When it all became too much, I could retreat into the private shell hell of the thesis. I realise now that it kept me alive with anxiety - and promise.

Until, one day, it all stopped and the finality was confirmed. Most women arrive at menopause in their early 50s and after. I will never know and can only surmise why it happened to me so early, in my mid-40s My German gynecologist was mystified. She squinted at the ultrasound image saying, but you’re studded with eggs. More than a year later when the lockdowns lifted briefly, and between Omicron waves, I slipped off to India to see my family and did another scan when I was there. (Except you don’t really scan to confirm menopause) My mother, a doctor, and her gynecologist, were equally surprised by how early it had come. By now I was not such a stud. The GYN only wanted to confirm that the endometrial lining was not more than 5mm thick; a higher figure can be indicative of cancer.

Lying there with cold gel on my abdomen, for the first time I felt myself approaching a fat border between emotion and rationality. Something caught in my throat. I felt a sadness that I had never quite experienced before; it had to do with not having had a chance to say goodbye properly. I thought about the abortion, about the child that might have turned 12 this autumn. I didn’t want it, and could not have it at that time. So it felt unfair -to myself - and a little irrational to think about it with sadness. I have never really wanted to reproduce but I am also sure (for myself and a number of friends with children and child-free) that having a uterus and the capacity to reproduce does not necessarily give you absolute certainty about wanting or not wanting to reproduce. It happens or it does not at the time that it does and you make a decision which may or may not be the wrong one. I’m getting better about that being a part of my life, that not-knowing.

The doctor saw the abortion scar on the scan but wisely did not say anything, possibly because my mother was sitting there. What she did say, cheerfully, is, now you’re free.

Freedom. I didn’t feel it then but I certainly feel it now. I don’t have to ‘take care’ anymore. No one really likes having their period even if you’re generally body-positive. It’s an inconvenience about 40% of the time after you settle into a routine with it, which could be anywhere from 5-10 years after you start menstruating. (This is of course a significant generalization /extrapolation from my own experience). And this is as someone who has never had a child, or PCOD or any other reproductive syndromes that many, many women experience these days. And without facing that much personal shame, save for the large scale, endemic cultural and social violence Indian society enacts on women’s bodies. (My mother has remarked that my sister and I are ‘lucky’ we did not grow up with my paternal grandmother, who did not let menstruating women prepare food in her kitchen).

I think I just wanted to be a bit older when this happened. I wanted to be told to pay attention to it as it dripped and drabbed to a stop. I saw the flow decreasing, obviously, but was not really paying attention to the fact that it would cease altogether. I would have liked three months notice, please. (What would I have done differently? - I ask myself)

Here is what that freedom is actually about for me and that may have to do with arriving at menopause, finishing my PhD, and/or pushing 50. I have no time to waste, no time for bullshit, not being myself, or vagueness. I feel rage and joy and desire and focus in ways that I never have before. This can be destabilising for people who are not experiencing this surge of DGAF. I am radical in ways that my 20 something self could never imagine. Menopause is part of a broader set of things happening in my life and is a deeply transformative moment. It is not just one thing i.e the cessation of menstruation; seeing it that way has helped me.

I’m ready to come out as menopausal because I feel much better about it all, am managing my health well, I think, and believe we really need to talk about this more. Talking and being irritated at how the world is not interested in being amenable to us through this time has value. Because we are living longer and have to be active and engaged with the world through and beyond this change. There are still a lot of things we don’t know about women’s bodies and aging. We have robust discussions and debates, if not always accommodations, for periods, pregnancy, breastfeeding, abortion, fertility. But we don’t necessarily talk about being at the top of one’s game and also going through a mostly hidden and potentially debilitating psycho-physical condition. Also, people around me seem to be interested, and I feel supported by their interest. My same-age friends, as well as older and younger women alike, those who are still menstruating, or who are on the pill, want to hear the details. Also, I have acquired new mythical powers: menopause-d and on HRT. My friends talk about me in whispers, I like to think, because of this. (LOL In a good way). I am the bringer of the flame. I have always been early to the party and ahead of the curve. I am the queen of bad timing. So in this menopause diary I will share recommendations and research about HRT (it’s been a year since I have been on HRT and have A LOT to say about it and all the research and testing about it). I am open to talking about the downsides of it and am constantly thinking about the risks, because they’re real. I will share what I have picked up and understood about health, fitness, aging-related anxieties, feminism, sexuality, and life on this side. It’s an ending, it’s a beginning; it feels epic because it is. I want to mark it like any other milestone, and I hope you will too. I feel closer to myself than ever before.

I’m going to end with something the algorithm vomited up at me: Pause by Mary Ruefle. Till next time,

🤘🏾MG