Peri(peri)menopauseland

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My body cries out: Sweat, sweat everywhere, and not a drop of humidity in the air! 

I have entered a true, new, liminal hell: peri(peri)menopauseland. 

Prior to entering peri(peri)menopauseland, I’d been in control of my corporeal state nearly my entire life. Or so I thought. Once the hormonal sea change began to creep in, leaving my frantic mind with nothing to punish nor obsessively monitor, I realized what a colossal lie I’d been telling myself for nearly four decades. Throw body dysmorphia into that mix of swirling, concentric chaos, and you realize you’re facing a multitude of pathological problems.  

So many of us, who identify either entirely as a woman, or mostly as a woman, have been wrapped up in the illusion of control, sadistically engaging in extreme dieting, overexercising, or any other myriad, tortuous routines. Through these activities, we’ve come to believe that we’re somehow in control of our bodies. That’s certainly how the dichotomous view of my mind over my body played itself out for close to four decades now. Oh, how that has changed.

That (laughable) illusion collapsed with perimenopause.

I’ve joined a crew of people who aren’t quite past the point of pregnancy, painful periods, mood swings, hormonal imbalances, and much, much more!

I imagine my body having its own singular voice. It is one voice that speaks on behalf of all the various, complex parts of the body, millions upon millions of pieces. In short, the voice has a big job to do — quelling that type of cacophony is a massive undertaking. But this voice, let’s call it “Sharon,” delights in the perimenopausal phase. For Sharon knows that menopause is on the forefront, and that my desire to control anything about my body has come to an abrupt end. And it’s only going to get worse. Sharon knows she’ll be referenced and deferred to more than ever. Sharon’s real job has just begun with the advent of perimenopause.

My body screams now: Sweat, sweat everywhere, and not a drop of humidity in the air!

I put myself anywhere cold in my mind, in my memories — the cold makes me nostalgic for the snows I experienced in childhood. For example, I think of my visit to Lake Champlain several years ago. It was just a few years ago, but the memory itself resides within my childhood memories. Probably because it was so cold. An overheated planet, along with being perimenopausal, makes me long for the cold — “brrrrrrrrrrrrrr! It’s cold — I experienced as a child. That real cold is lost now, and never coming back, just like the control I once had over my body. Back to my memory of Lake Champlain — at that time, the lake was nearly frozen solid, so fishing huts and trucks could be seen, speckled across the lake, from where I stood at the sliding glass doors of a large cabin we booked on AirBnB. No joke: it was -10 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Mere minutes earlier to looking out the glass doors, I had turned on the fireplace. The cabin had been empty until we’d arrived, so it was approximately 60 degrees Fahrenheit inside. That’s hardly warm! For most, it’s frigid. And yet I had just torn off my cheap sweatshirt and was sweating. Profusely. I can feel the sweat under my eyeballs. I can feel the sweat under my nostrils. Sweat runs down both my chin and spine. I’m drowning in sweat.

That’s when I knew that my journey into (peri)menopause had just begun. 

My body cries out: Sweat, sweat everywhere, and not a drop of humidity in the air! 

Next up? The Politics of Tits

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