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Me and my fellow 50-something friends have a lot of running jokes about hoping and praying for menopause. That’s because the whole bloody lead up to it — and I do mean bloody for several of my friends — is such a physical and emotional pain that the idea of getting out of perimenopause and to the menopause finish line is oh-so-very-welcome.
Technically you reach the menopausal stage when you’ve made it 12 months without a period. So as my friends’ once-monthly cycles have gotten wonky, I’ve watched them start a count, sometimes over and over again. “I’ve made it six weeks with nothing!” one will text only to follow up in a few days with, “Damn. It came back.”
My own journey has been less up and down because I was using IUDs for fifteen years. I wasn’t getting periods with those, so I wasn’t sure what would happen when I stopped using an IUD at age 49. Would cramps return? Bloating? Bleeding? Once my gynecologist removed that last one, I was in the waiting-and-watching camp with everyone else. And I was hoping that I was menopausal.
Here are just some of the things you can do when you’ve reached menopause or are postmenopausal: You can pack a swimsuit for vacation and never, ever give a thought to whether you can easily go swimming. Of course you can! You can wear cute lingerie and underwear again, without wondering if they will get messy. They will not! You can have sex with your partner every day of the month without needing to give any kind of warning.
I know this because — tada! — I made it through the 12 months of watching to be sure I was really, truly in the promised land. My friends are jealous. Even though I still have some symptoms, including day and night hot flashes, for the most part I have very few “lady worries.” (Such a stupid euphemism for health concerns that half the population deals with!) My hot flashes are manageable. My husband is used to me sleeping with blankets off while he keeps them on, and I’ll walk around outside in a sweatshirt when everyone else has on a jacket. Luckily for me there’s just not a lot of drama around it.
I’ve enjoyed reaching this new life stage. My thoughts in my 20s, 30s and 40s had to revolve so much around my chances of getting pregnant: First I was on the pill to prevent pregnancy, then I was off of it and trying to get pregnant (I did, in fact, have two great kids), then I was preventing pregnancy again with the IUDs. That’s all in the rearview mirror now and here in my early 50s I have space in my brain for so many other things.
Many of us can really see ourselves now that our lives don’t revolve so much around what our bodies are doing cycle-wise.
There’s a stigma about menopause that would have us believe it makes us old and cranky. I don’t feel that way though. I am still young enough to travel. I like to exercise. I’m happy to have my kids in college. I sleep in on many days, like I’m making up for two decades of sleep deficit. I love having leisurely breakfasts and dinners with my husband. “Me time” is pretty much anytime I want and I treasure that.
Many women my age do feel depression and so I don’t want to gloss over how hard this stage can be for some. But many of us are also thriving. In my friend circle there is someone who just got engaged and someone who just bought her dream home that’s a weekend place for now but will be her retirement house eventually. Another took what she happily characterizes as her final job — she’ll never have to job-hunt again. We’re hitting major milestones we’ve been fantasizing about for decades.
Most importantly, many of us can really see ourselves now that our lives don’t revolve so much around what our bodies are doing cycle-wise. It’s easier to tell what you genuinely want to do and don’t want to do in life when you’re not also “preventing” or “trying” or “managing.” You can just be, and it’s fantastic.
Everyone’s menopause story is different, as the new guard of menopause advocates will tell you. Plenty of women’s menopause stories are positive, and I don’t feel like those are necessarily shared so much. Or they are shared but framed as “second chapter” stories that have more to do with the kids being out of the house. Let’s be honest, it’s the absence of periods, cramps, migraines and misery that really makes our next life phrase so great.
If you’re in the countdown to menopause, keep talking to your OB-GYN about your symptoms so you can perhaps gauge how close you are to being done. When you reach the mark of going a year without your period, have a celebration, even if it’s small and just in your head. Enjoy.
