The thief in the night

The thief in the night that stole my sanity. I was going to say youth but that was taken from me years ago.

Like a thief in the night, silent, with stealth and cunning, slowly creeping in; you go to bed as a normal person (well as normal as you can be) and you wake up a completely different person. You no longer remember what normal was, let alone is; sanity has been stolen right from under our noses.

The thief has a name; and it’s peri-menopause (from hereon in referred to as PM). It is a sneaky piece of work and is nobody’s friend. I saw a great quote the other day ‘I used to have a handle on life but it broke off when I started menopause’.

PM took my sleep from me. Not the world’s best sleeper to begin with but what little sleep I had been previously getting was now gone completely. I was constantly tired but when I went to bed I just couldn’t sleep. The main reason for that was that PM also stole my cooling system. Hot flushes at night they say! I was a walking, talking sauna 24/7. I could go to the footy in the middle of winter in jeans and t-shirt and still be uncomfortably warm. The heat and lack of sleep was what finally did my head in and drove me to drugs – take a chill pill, I mean the HRT version.

PM also took my naturally blonde hair. Correction, taken was my blonde hair that hasn’t been completely natural since 1986. PM came as a thief in the night and took my natural fair hair, randomly placing strands of grey throughout. It is now a drier, more brittle version of what it once was, leaving more hair on the bathroom floor and on my clothing than on my head. And do not even start me on the facial hair anomalies!

Sometime overnight my waist was also taken. Whilst it was not in top shape when it was stolen, it was still a waist. I went to bed with a 2 pack (the other 4 were always hidden underneath somewhere). But when I woke up the 2 were also gone, and I don’t think they’re hiding underneath! I’ve been robbed, I tell you!.

PM came in and took all of my precious oils, causing my skin to start wrinkling almost immediately. I’m not talking laugh line wrinkles, I’m talking saggy skin wrinkles! Gone is the lovely shade of pale, with a fine sprinkling of freckles that I once had. Left in its place is a somewhat mottled (when I’m cold), ruddier complexion (because I’m always hot) and skin that is looser (this will make sense to those that know what I’m talking about). I am so envious of young people and their flawless, smooth skin. My tattoos no longer look as awesome as they once used to now that the canvas they were printed on has gone to ruin lol.

And where the F is my memory? Some days I feel like I don’t have a clue what’s going on. I have become very vague of late. No idea where I’d put my glasses (if I’m being honest that’s been going on for years lol) or why I’d try and put tea bags in the fridge or sugar in the microwave. Most days I cannot remember what I did the previous day. And whilst I have never been good at remembering names, I can’t even remember the faces that go with these names. Not a good thing when you teach yoga and you can’t recall if someone has been to your class before. I thought I was slowly losing my mind yet it seems that PM is the cause of this also and just snuck away with my memory while I was trying to sleep. Geez, I only had 2 kids but what were their names again and which one is which? Just kidding!

I’m tired of PM getting away with robbery. It’s like the Grinch who stole Xmas, but in this case it’s ‘The Grinch who stole all my shit’. Admittedly most of the good shit was already gone, but it was still my shit that you took!

Everything changes as you age: your skin, your hair, and your body. Your ability to stay out until 2 in the morning has greatly diminished as is your ability to drink copious amounts of alcohol. The body no longer recovers from injury or neglect like it once used to. I’d gotten used to the fact that my body was no longer what it once was. I would be unable to have any more children (like that was never going to happen anyway lol). My boobs no longer sit quite as nicely as they once did (thank goodness for small miracles, they were never that big that they now hang down to my knees). It takes soooo much longer to get over an injury nowadays-even something as minor as a stubbed toe. Just as I was getting used to the newer version of my mid-life body PM changed all the rules and took off with what was left. PM took off like a bull at the gate, I just couldn’t keep up. I should’ve just gone for the kneecaps. The kicker is, this could go on for years (insert sad face and a huge sigh).

It has taken me about a year to get a grip on what was happening. It turns out that theft was not PM’s only skill; I had no clue that insomnia, weight gain, sadness, forgetfulness etc was all a part of the package. PM was a jack of all trades in causing misery. They say this phase of hormone upheaval can last anywhere from 5 – 10 years. Great, I’m only about one tenth of the way through.

Apparently it is not all doom and gloom. According to the experts, this is also the biggest opportunity for personal growth and empowerment since adolescence….well, so they say. Time will tell. And I wonder if that includes the time spent on HRT because that’s what’s currently keeping me sane? Can I become enlightened and empowered on drugs haha? Seriously, I started reading all about estrogen, progesterone and testosterone levels and their ratios to one another blah blah blah, but then just gave it up. There is jack shit we can do to stop PM from creeping into your life so we may as well accept it-with the grace that comes with age, plus my brain just doesn’t have the capability to ingest all of this at the moment. I hope my brain function doesn’t wait until PM has left the building until it returns to normal.

When all is said and done I have fared well over the years when it came to female stuff so I figured this was payback. And the way I see it, I now have a valid excuse for my poor decisions.

Suzi xx