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I May Hate My Period, But... While most women would gladly give up their monthly cycle (even the most devout goddess worshipers wishes for the day when she need not stain her favorite panties, or worry about both her bedding and her partner's response to her blood, deal with hormonal acne, or other issues of menstruation), we do not happily leave it... I won't give you the litany of menopausal symptoms. You women know them. We may joke around that we'd trade a few hot flashes for the days of cycle-mania, or that we look forward to sex without fear of pregnancy, but deep down, we fear it.
Let's face it, menopause is scary. It's not just 'a change' it's The Change -- the change in which we realize we are aged. No longer a maiden, or a mother, but a crone. Menopause literally marks the end of our fruitful days and with this, we loose a certain lushness. It's not just vanity which makes us morn the loss of firm, smooth skin free of stray hairs; but damnit, what about our round hips which flare from small waists?
We may not be able to control the loss of our hourglass shapes, but neither can males control their response to the hourglass shape, the sign of fertility which automatically loads their sperm guns... It's not just America's obsession with youth, or social conditioning, this is a biological fact! With menopause, we will show our infertility... thick trunks, thick saggy skin, and thinning hair... Will we loose our allure, through no fault of our own?
While women are 'given' the allowance for the Empty Nest Syndrome, I don't think anyone dearly pays enough attention to the biological response, and our own reaction to it. Sure, our kids growing up are a sign of our own age and mortality. Sure, our daily lives will change -- I'm not underestimating the loss and emotional trauma of children moving out on their own. But please, our identities as mothers may be deep, but I don't think it is deeper than our sexual identity. Where we once were young, firm and fertile, lusted after to the point of complaints, we now become unwanted, undesired and even unidentifiable -- at least to ourselves.
Men, your hair has been thinning for years, yet your swimmers can still hit the target. You are older, but not infertile. And your aging is not a turnoff for the female gaze... we just don't respond negatively to your biological symptoms of aging. You can still attract us. But we women, we do not fare as well.
We know what you and your penis want. We know it, and we fear the loss of it.
Men, don't underestimate this fear -- you have it yourselves. What do you think your midlife crisis is about?! It's about your aging issues, your changes in blood flow and hormones which make you limp. Where once, your proud sex member stood for something, anything really, you now wonder where it is and if you can start without it. Medicine has heard you weeping softly into your pillows and raging at the aging machine and produced Viagra and a plethora of other pills to treat your aging issue, but as of yet, there is no medical solution to our loss of fertility and its signifiers. While we may have medicines to alleviate symptoms, we have no pill to whittle our waists and retain our hourglass shapes -- no way to inspire you to take that little blue pill...
And what about our natural lubrication? Should someone desire us, will we show our desire? Sure, there are lubes-a-plenty, but for those of us who've never had to bother, suddenly, poof! No more natural lubrication? Holy Hell! Doesn't our body work the same anywhere anymore?!
Why, this is too much to bear! It's loss after loss after loss...
Emotional changes? Hell, even without the chemical changes affecting our moods, who can take the weeks, the months, of uncertainty? What sucks is that you don't know that you are having your last period until it's long over... You prepare yourself, only to bleed again... Up & down you ride the rollercoaster. And then, one day, you realize, your period is gone.
You've been so busy trying to suffer through it, with your brain addled by chemical changes, you never had a chance to properly say goodbye.
You fight through the hot flashes and insomnia only to discover you have become a physical hag. To be kind, our Hag is not your grandmother's Hag, but still, we see some other old lady peering back in the mirror... Who is she?
An enlightened woman would welcome this older woman -- she'd invite her in for tea, or vodka as the case may be, and get to know her. A wiser woman would look forward to having the chance to 'become' yet again. But I am too young and set in my ways. I just fear her.
And worse yet, I fear the reactions of others as they see the new Old Me.
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