How menopause creates the superwomen through the simple yet complicated battle of living through it and thriving.
Women And Menopause
Understanding women is understanding the complexities that start early with pre-puberty, puberty, and post-puberty. It is a time when little girls’ sass becomes the coined phrase “she’s a little spitfire.”
If that’s not enough, we move into the childbearing years. Prime time for every woman to know her body. A wonderful uninhibited amount of confidence and an uncanny ability to use it to their advantage.
Night Sweats, Wet Sheets and No Sleep
Then one day, she wakes up sweating in the middle of the night. It’s not ordinary sweating. It is the dripping-wet-hair kind that leaves an outline of her body imprinted on the sheets and pillowcases. Groggy, she must change her undergarments and those linens, or find a new place to get more zzz’s before dawn.
The tossing and turning while lying in the silence turns into a self-discovery of the worst nightmare of all women. More intense than the gory monthly invasion, now is the moment of reality when she knows her life is changing. The words no woman wants to hear dominate her thoughts: “Oh, Sheetz, this must be pre-menopause.”
And that is when she puts men on pause!
Our Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause
By Boston Women’s Health Book Collective
Judy Norsigian and Vivian Pinn
Women’s guide through menopause.
Instantly, everything seems to poke at her like an invisible pencil. First, sweat falls from her brow onto the clean bedding, the soaked bra, and then brain fog. Then, another poke in her abdomen sets her tossing and turning, without the ability to keep her eyes closed at night.
Her body heats once again. Heart pounding, and with a big gasp of air, the covers are now thrown on the other side of the bed.
Like the eve before a holiday, she tiptoes through the house to avoid waking anyone. Right now is not the time to talk, but to think and accept the conclusion that the “M” is here.
Then, the 2-3 am rituals begin, repeating every night until one day it happens while cooking dinner. Then again, at work. If she’s lucky, there will be someone like her children on standby with magazines and notepads nearby, ready to fan her.
The things women do while going through the pain and struggles of balancing the imbalance of a life that is changing. Suffocating heads popping in and out of the freezer amplify any fear that society has already embedded in her mind.
Ah, the aging process. The devaluing as she abruptly steps into the monumental changes of her life now seems to be the only thing she can think of until one day when she lets it go, hoping soon everything will calm down.
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Time marches on, and so do changes in her monthly cycle. Her family looks at her as if she’s an imposter. Or worse, she’s now possessed by something they can’t see. But she sees it.
Everything that stirs nearby hides. The kids, the hubby, co-workers, and even the tiny creatures that sneak through the house are not to be found. For about an hour, she moves further into her upgraded version of self.
That is where her genuine power comes from – the “I don’t give a damn about what anyone thinks” power.
A group of Superwomen!
The Superwomen Arrive
While men go through their personal mid-life changes and wind up with a sports car, society claims that women of a certain age become meaner. But that’s not the way it really works. This is a woman who keeps sacrificing, with a smile plastered on her face right next to the emerging wrinkles and fist of truth.
It’s when she decides it’s the moment that defines everything she has learned in life and about herself. Deep-diving into books, magazines, and social circles to find out as much information as possible about what’s ahead.
Shamelessly, she decides no wrinkles, wet sheets, or sweaty armpits leaking through her shirt will stop her from taking charge of the situation. Her inner power shines through without guile; she fearlessly steps into the best version that life offers.
With a raised fist to no one around her, she declares, “That’s it!” This is that one moment when every woman realizes it is time to turn the tables in her favor.
The superwoman that was hiding inside. The one who fit into the nooks and crannies of life now comes full circle as she plows through and accomplishes more with a towel nearby than ever before. More than ever imagined. Never mess with a woman who accepts the changes her body goes through. She is graceful and tough.
Beautiful and smart, plus a force to be reckoned with, she wipes her brow more time. Completely aware that there is much more to her than meets the “menopause” itself, she’ll be the one saying that everything is going to be okay.
The 3:00 AM Confessional:
What is the one situation, obligation, or dynamic you tolerated for twenty years that you suddenly refused to tolerate the moment your body shifted into midlife?
Drop your boundary in the comments below. No apologies, no explanations. Just pure realism.
Join us in our new series and share your stories. Women and menopause.
