Shifting into Menopause; the great illuminator.

Once a woman reaches “a certain age,” it becomes apparent that there have been two creatures living their lives side-by-side inside her.

One was the heart/head/will that did a whole lot of things the body would have preferred to avoid. Things like eating donuts, having babies, using hormonal birth control, and being sedentary.

And when you’re younger, all of it seems to work out, no harm, no foul, because the heart/head/will is in control, for the most part. So the body gets pulled along into whatever crazy scheme the heart/head/will thinks might be fun or rewarding.

When we reach this “certain age” and we’re no longer doped up on estrogen and progesterone, the body asserts control. There’s no more pandering to the tastebuds, no more collusion with the beauty industry, no more pandering to the uterus and all that entails, no more mind over matter, no more smiling through the pain, no more bending to social norms. Nope, there is none of that. Instead, there are consequences.

The leftovers from the pastries, the candy, the pizza and burgers are now stuck to the sides of your arteries and making their presence known. Avoiding exercise means it will be 20x harder to get them off. Your belly? Did you know it is “normal” for women to develop an “apron” when they’re over 50 and naked? Surprise! It is. You can thank your children for that one. It is going to take every bit of self denial, and hours of crunches to even begin to make it recede. Truth is, it will never completely go away. What will go away, and sooner than you think, is the fact that you care about it.

If you are among that percentage of women who had to get a hysterectomy or deliver by C-section? Well, your bladder might be interested in wreaking some revenge of its own. I’m grateful, I’ve avoided that one by placating the angry uterus with absolute submission for four days a month every month for most of my life. But do the math. You can be like me and pay your uterine dues over time, or you can be like other women and take the balloon payment when you reach menopause. Either way, your life has been mortgaged to that organ. There is no avoiding it.

Did you use hormonal birth control? The penalty for that is hairs. They begin to grow all over the place. And not where you want them either. Where you want them, they will thin out and fall away. I have one and one half eyebrows now. How did that happen? I pissed off my body when I was younger and now I am paying for it.

Menopausal women get pimples and wrinkles at the same time. If you’re lucky, your digestive system won’t decide to wage war but it will still punish you whenever it gets the opportunity. And you will be surprised at how often those opportunities arise. Suddenly, the “early bird special” at restaurants who have a lot of senior patrons makes perfect sense. While romantic, post-theater suppers are out of the question, unless you want to stay up to see the sun rise.

You fall asleep easily but not when you plan to, that decision is up to your body. When you want to fall asleep, you will lie awake for hours staring at the ceiling and thinking about mortality and the possibility of a third act in the life stories of women. And patience? That’s for young women. Menopause takes your last few jars of that and empties them out the window the minute your last period ends.

There is that old story about two wolves inside every person — and the one who survives is the one you feed. That might be true for men but it is not true for women.

The one who survives inside a woman is the one that has been denied for most of her life. It’s the one who has been waiting to resume running, climbing, shouting and being the little girl she was before the onset of “womanhood” It is the feral body.

The good news is, you no longer have any reason to hold back. You can take up archery, start running marathons, lifting weights or climbing mountains. You can tour Europe on a bicycle, take up hang gliding, man the barricades at the pipeline protests. There are no limits. There are no children depending on you and no more monthly schedule to make certain days off-limits or wear you down with iron deficiency. That’s over. If you’re happily married, in my experience, all of these newfound freedoms and appetites will only make your husband more devoted. Even if that devotion is because he’s worried for your safety, it’s nice to know your marriage has acquired something of a bullet-proof status. You may change but the love you share does not.

We wake up to our instincts after all the babies and wooing and swooning is over. And they are savage. Women of a certain age can’t be mollified by kind words and empty promises. The voluntary bullshit overlooking mechanism fails. You become your best, worst, most volatile, most hilarious self and while yes, some of the world seems impossibly irksome, it is also full of new and boundless horizons.

Welcome to menopause. Let me take your coat.