Salty About Menopause

I’m salty. I am real damn salty about menopause. I don’t even like the word. I don’t like saying it. I don’t even want to talk about it. They need to come up with another word. The mere mention of it chaps my hide. Salty.

Here’s the deal. I’m 47, right? And I’m feeling some kind of way. I hurt. I could cry at any moment. I sweat like a dog. I am not myself at all, it came on within the last three months, and it’s getting worse. I don’t like it one little bit, and I want my spark back. My spark has seemingly been extinguished. Just no.

And the jokes? The memes? The “funny” spoof on a song I saw in my feed the other day. Also no. This is not funny. It is not to be mocked or made light of. I have no sense of humor when it comes to this. Too soon. I am feeling so the opposite of my usual fabulous self, that it’s kind of scary. It is worrisome and discouraging. “Funny” is not the F word I am inclined to use.

Nobody really talks about this, not in a valuable way. We hear what “beasts” we turn into. We hear how our loved ones have to work around us and try to deal with our tears and sniveling. The world pokes fun at our growing older.

The fact is we should be talking about it and frankly, being taught to prepare for it. Nobody prepares us. We should be respected for it, too. The whole process should be respected a little more. Our bodies are going haywire, our emotions are all over the place, and we are feeling ugly. We weren’t ready, we don’t understand what’s happening, and Lord knows, we can’t figure out what to do about it. We WANT to do something about it, trust us. We want our energetic, vibrant selves back.

So here I am. Salty. And sweaty. With tears. And fat. With aches and pains. Let’s talk about this more. Let’s share with each other and build each other up. Let’s teach our daughters…and our husbands…and our sons. Let’s use humor to get through it, but let’s don’t allow ourselves to be the butt of old-lady jokes. This is no joke. It’s real and awful and stupid.

Somebody pass me my purple, sparkly fan.