MY MENOPAUSE BRAIN
Menopause Delivered Me a Surprise
I harnessed my crone status to get through challenges
It’s nearly impossible to talk about menopause without saying something about menstruation, but it’s not polite conversation, is it?
So, rather than candid talks about the end of that era — the gold-standard entry into the menopause club — we make jokes about hot flashes.
We stay up alone at night with insomnia. And we rage, justifiably so. Because menopause is really fucking hard.
Menopause started, for me, with horrific insomnia. It ended much harder — with a diagnosis of uterine cancer.
When I was nearing fifty, I started waking up each night at 1:00 in the morning. The alarm was set for 6:00 am, as I taught high school English. I needed sleep, but I didn’t get it. I tried everything, including going to bed earlier. Meditation. Melatonin. Turning off all screens and noise an hour before bedtime. At 1:00 am, my eyes blinked open. Count down from 100, I told myself. You got this.
When I got all the way down, I tried again. From 200. Deep, slow breaths. 199…198…
The worst thing about being dead-ass tired around a large classroom of sixteen-year-olds is they take full advantage if you’re not…
