Perimenopause Can Suck It #13: Take a Beat

Lucky #13!

I know it doesn’t feel lucky, but if you’ve made it this far in your life, far enough to experience perimenopause, you’re one of the lucky ones.  It means you lived long enough to come to a new chapter in your life, you get to turn the page, to enter into your new normal, at least for a time. Take a beat to understand and appreciate that bit of wonder.

YAY, YOU!

I say that with all seriousness.  YAY!

We live; we change.  Those are the rules.  You aren’t excluded, no matter how much you may hate this part. When I’m having a tougher day, wrestling with perimenopause, I remind myself that lots of people die before they hit my age and I’m one of the lucky ones to have survived, to be able to whine about my symptoms.  Although, I try hard not to; I’m stronger than hormonal swings and feeling like I live in the Sahara.  I’M STRONGER THAN THAT!  Oh, and you are too, my babies.

This perimenopause sucketh is but for a season, a shift into our new normal.  Kinda like when we first welcomed kids into our lives, with baby paraphernalia and body fluids everywhere, causing us to doubt our sanity. Or when we encountered our first toddler meltdown. Or our first surly teenaged mouth.  Or even when our little darlings, whom we had become attached to in so many unexpected ways, left us for their own lives.  HOW DARE THEY! Moving into perimenopause is kinda like that. We don’t want it to be true, that we find ourselves old enough to be in this space, but here we are.

Time to embrace one. more. change.

I’ve written about everything from heart disease, to breast cancer odds, to sexy-time, to perimenopausal rage. I’ve advised you on studies for staying healthy and fit, on caffeine usage and the dreaded brain fog. Now, in the midst of what may be your fear and annoyance, I want to tell you is this: take a beat.  Take a hot minute to know that while so much of perimenopause is filled with anxiety and fear of what is to come, you are experiencing the glorious nature of your body’s shift to a new level of amazeballs.

The same body that filled you out as an adolescence (or, in my case, I was made to wait for that moment my whole life), that gloriously housed your growing babies and then pushed them out of their first nest into your waiting arms, that sustained you through life’s bumps and joys, is now offering you a rest in many ways.

No more periods. Or exclamation marks! No more wondering if you’re preggo. No more contraception! More freedom. No more brutal cramps or wild hormonal swings (you know, once you’re to the other side.) No more pap smears!

Seriously, look at that list.  Certainly we could add to it for days, but if you take a beat, take a moment to see the upside of what pop-culture tells you is a diminishing of your life, what you’ll see is that entering into perimenopause is preparing us for growth, for our lives getting bigger, not smaller.

Pop-culture can suck it too.

The next time you have the sads because you’re buying into the crap our society is selling about age, I want you to take a beat and remember that it takes a warrior to live through what we’re experiencing. That’s you: warrior. Don’t forget that, ever.

When you arrive at the other side of this, at times tortuous change in your life, you’re going to be stronger, smarter, less sweaty and free to do whatever it is you’d like to do in this brand new skin of yours.

Don’t forget that, either.

Take a beat. Commit that to memory.

Onward, warriors.

* Disclaimer: All information in this series is based on my personal experience and is not intended to take the place of your doctor’s advice.

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