Usually they're referred to as hot flashes, but let me tell you that there is nothing flashy about them. They come on more gradually and last longer than hot flash implies. It's like my skin is one of those old, flat hoses with thousands of teensy holes like a slip and slide (my pores) and someone eases on the water, shuts it off, eases it on, shuts it off until I'm sitting, sweating and peeling off winter clothes to dry. These often follow a bout of chills. It's like I have the flu, except I feel fine.
This is a particularly awkward experience when I'm in the gym exercising. The first time I felt it there I was walking on the treadmill (the milder of my routines) and I was sweating like I was on the bike. When I later got on the bike (days later, not that day for heaven's sake) you could have mopped the gym with what dripped off me. Thank God the marines weren't there that time. Or maybe they should have been so they could see how hard I work. Usually when they are there I'm skipping on the treadmill. I always feel a little guilty skipping while they are heaving their bodies up on the pull up bar and jumping from a squat with their packs on. Skipping is hard work! Try it if you don't believe me.
I stopped taking birth control just before Christmas. Don't tell Douglas. (Just kidding!) I'm sick and tired of taking a pill every night and I was hoping I would have already gone through menopause and just not noticed. Stop laughing. I'm told it happens. The heat waves came first. I was expecting that and they really don't bother me at all. I love the heat, born in Phoenix in June and all that. What I did not expect was the pain. I don't know what's going on with that. First I noticed that when I eat my morning hummus wrap my hands get tingly from holding it. I have to put it down to get the circulation going again. At night my hands fall asleep or just hurt whenever I lie on my side, which is how I've always slept. Two older friends of mine told me that it could be a lack of potassium, magnesium and Vitamin D. So now I'm popping pills of a different sort. This time in the morning. Ah, me. The hand pain is particularly distressing as I can't write. I can play piano thank the living God and, as I sit here, I see I can type.
I mentioned being distressed. I guess I could put on some rose colored glasses and see it as my ticket out of housework. Apartment work as it is here in Munich. Hmm.
There is a bright side to all this. Unlike most women my mood has improved. My New Year's resolution was to live deliberately. This includes getting myself to stop swearing. I've hardly sworn in 2015. I've even been through some triggers and merely shrugged off whatever usually sends me into a rant. Nice. And I've lost weight. Yes. Lost weight. Not much, but I don't want/need to lose much. If my hands keep giving me trouble while I'm eating I guess that will get more dramatic. I'll have to wait to be fed or eat piggy style.
Last Lent was a disaster for me. I was good for a couple of weeks (no sweets, no alcohol) then fell apart. I fell apart for months. This Lent my only promise is to live like all this menopausal stuff is not going on. This is contingent on the doctor saying it's okay to use my hands even when it's painful. I don't want to start telling myself this is too hard or that hurts too much (unless it truly does) because that will send me to a place I don't think I should yet go. I can still exercise, it's just not as comfortable. Written as though it were ever comfortable. The free weights are very painful for my hands to hold, I'm going to try another apparatus in the gym that is set so that I don't have to grasp the weights. I can just push with my palms.
I can hear some older women saying, "Just you wait, dear. You're going down whether you like it or not." Maybe true. I believe that one of the main reasons people realize one day that they are 50 pounds overweight is that they ignored the first five. "It's only five pounds." Likewise, the reason many can't touch their toes or balance is because they stopped doing it daily. Even though it's a challenge I still stand on one leg to put each sock on and even though it hurts my hips I still stand straight legged to tie my shoes. I'll likely be able to do this for many more years because of that.
I'm not faulting those in poor health. Things happen. Bones are broken and, in the healing, strength is lost. Arthritis sets in (like it or not) and makes some movement too uncomfortable or impossible. Inner ears act up throwing off balance beyond our control. I know this and I know that it may happen to me. I remember an old ad for some skin cream. "I don't want to grow old gracefully; I want to fight it every step of the way." While I do want to have the grace of my mother, I do want to stave off as much as I am able.
I wish us all the ability to age gracefully whether it's learning to walk, going through our adolescent body changes, childbirth and recovery, losing sexual abilities or urges or simply growing old and stiff and weak. We all handle it in our own way. I'm hoping my way is a good blend of pushing through it while not ignoring or denying it. Those of you who can, write me and tell me how you've handled it.
