When my period tracker app told me I was 365 days late, I took a screenshot. It was official. Today, according to the medical definition, was my Menopause Day. Tomorrow, I would be in post-menopause. The past few years, perimenopause. But today. This was something. Wasn’t it?
I stared at my phone, waiting for the app to register the occasion. An explosion of fireworks across the screen? A crown emoji? Maybe that pink box (period just started!) would turn gold and chime, signifying Next Level. I was crossing a threshold. This was significant. Something to celebrate, right?
Photo Courtesy Of Melanie Faranello
I imagined a pop-up message: You made it! You are now in a club with millions of women around the world … until the tone quickly turns bleak … with millions of women drenched in sweat, chills, fatigue, brain fog, weight gain, depression, shame. Do not talk about it. Be quiet. Be young. Buy face cream to tighten your jowls — they will be the first things to fall.
According to the app, I had not arrived anywhere, I was just 365 days late. And tomorrow, presumably, 366. It felt like a reprimand, a warning. My initial feelings gave way to dread as some pervasive cultural message resounded: Menopause was bad.
I texted the screenshot to my sister, three years older, and she immediately replied. Her text was full of enthusiastic exclamations, congratulating me, welcoming me into the phase she had entered a few years prior. I smiled, encouraged, feeling uplifted and initiated. I texted the screenshot again, this time to my friend, the same age as me, but who had not yet reached her 365-day mark. Her text quickly came through with party popper emojis, hearts and wow faces. We decided that as soon as she crossed the finish line, we would take a girls’ trip. We would celebrate this milestone together. A menopause trip! Why not?
Then in all seriousness we wondered, why wasn’t this a thing?
I began to investigate if any greeting card companies made Congratulations on Your Menopause cards but found nothing. Menopause, after all, was a medical diagnosis. A condition from which we suffer, go crazy, and lose our vital selves. If we talk about it at all, it’s to commiserate, not to celebrate.
But my impulse to mark this rite of passage felt desperate. Did people have menopause parties?
Born in Chicago in the 70s, of both Greek and Jewish heritage, I grew up in a household with lots of fanfare around birthdays, and all the holidays — Hanukkah, Christmas, American Easter, Greek Easter, Passover, Halloween, Valentine’s Day even Casimir Pulaski Day, which was an official day off from school in Illinois. So maybe it was as simple as that, an inclination to celebrate.
But the truth was, I was scared. Menopause was the drain threatening to suck away my purpose, youth and sanity. It was riddled with stigma, and I had absorbed the message: Do not broadcast your menopause. It will reveal your age, your lack, your expiration date.
This feeling of shame around menstruation was not new to me. When I first got my period at age 12, I sat on my bedroom carpet recording myself over and over on a portable cassette player, practicing how to tell my mother. I rewound the tape, listened to my attempt, recorded over it, again and again. When my mother finally came into my room, I broke into tears.
Throughout my years of menstruation, I became versed in hiding — sweaters around the waist in case of bleed-through, tampons up the sleeve. When I started buying my own products, I’d go to the pharmacy in the next town and avoid eye contact with the cashier.
The perimenopause years were a tumult of hot flashes, night sweats and a new kind of anxiety that made me dizzy on a teeter-totter of emotional reactivity. The first time I experienced a hot flash, I let out a few crazed exclamations as I grabbed the nearest book to fan myself, crying out to my husband in the other room that I was on fire and not to worry. Was this a hot flash? Despite how obvious it was, I wasn’t sure.
My brain and ovaries were communicating in their own secret language, planning the impending hormonal shutdown in this body to which they had been randomly assigned. They were working hard, via a fancy neuroendocrine system, on my behalf. Now, technically, they had accomplished their job. Didn’t this deserve a moment of recognition?
There is no universal menopause. The extent and variety of symptoms affect each person differently. Even cultural messaging around menopause differs widely around the world. In some cultures, post-menopausal women gain status and power in their communities. Some even claim that our cultural attitudes can affect our physical experiences. Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, clinical professor in obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive health at Yale School of Medicine, told Reuters, “In societies where age is more revered and the older woman is the wiser and better woman, menopausal symptoms are significantly less bothersome.”
A massive disparity also exists in terms of access to sanitary products, menstruation education and treatment options. Poverty, living in war zones, cultural attitudes, access to health care — all this and more contribute to and complicate the menstrual experience.
But the fact of menopause is universal. The biological transformation happens to female bodies regardless of geography or privilege. And here I was, now part of this invisible network. Half the population on earth will experience this transition, yet before my symptoms began, why hadn’t I heard more about it?
Celebrities have started talking more publicly about menopause in recent years in an effort to break its stigmas. The menopause wellness market is growing. Most often the focus is on mitigating symptoms, providing education and supporting women through the transition, all of which are important. What about also celebrating this transition? Framing it as something to honor and revere? An accomplishment. A step into another version of our truest selves.
I heard an interview on NPR with neuroscientist Lisa Mosconi, author of “The Menopause Brain,” who explained that there are only four animal species on our planet where the females survive beyond their reproductive years: Humans are one of them, along with a couple kinds of killer whales, the Asian elephant and the Japanese aphid.
The fact that we long outlive this period, whereas other species die soon after their ability to reproduce, struck me as amazing. It seemed to validate the fact that in the post-reproductive years, not only do we still have a lot to accomplish, a purpose that surpasses anything to do with our hormones, but we also gain, in an accumulation of years and experience, a certain kind of power and freedom.
Masconi explained, “This rewiring [in the menopause brain] seems to be happening for a good reason, which is to really prepare women for the next phase of life, for the non-reproductive phase of life, that can be just as productive.”
Rather than a shedding of our youth and productivity, this transformation is an unburdening of that which no longer serves us, literally reshaping our brains, leaving us liberated, a distilled version of our most necessary selves. Instead of thinking of menopause in terms of everything we are losing, can we embrace it as a time of empowerment?
Now, in the pharmacy, I pass the feminine care aisle with a mix of astonishment and nostalgia, just as I did the infant care section once my babies were teens, knowing I would never shop in that section again. It’s not that I missed the booger-suction bulbs, Pedialyte or diaper rash cream. I didn’t miss the assortment of tampons or overnight pads for heavy flow. But still, I had spent over three decades shopping in that aisle. And now, Aisle 20 was history. It felt bittersweet, like most milestones do.
The hot flashes, now familiar, no longer flatten me on the couch as I wait for them to pass, but new moments of brain fog and memory lapses give me that same inward pause, observing the chaos inherent in this transformation occurring in my brain. But if we understand it is happening for a greater reason than just to make us suffer, if we remember we are only one of four species on earth meant to live long past this phase, can we embrace it as a time that will propel us into a new chapter? Can we celebrate this milestone? What about greeting card companies? Party supply stores? Can they get on board?
While I was unable to find a Congratulations on Your Menopause card, I did find a greeting card company online that accepted submissions. So, I decided to write one myself. I tried to think of clever slogans: No more PMS! Wear white pants! Go swimming any time of the month! It was harder than I thought.
Ultimately, my proposed message was:
Congratulations! Welcome to this new phase of life! May it bring you renewed strength, true purpose, and inspiration as you join women around the world connected by this experience. Your ovaries may be done, but YOU are just beginning.
I’m not suggesting menstrual confetti or tampon lollipops (though there might be a market for it), but rather thinking about menopause as something women graduate into, as a phase that holds potential. Something we can support one another through with encouragement, and also some fanfare.
As soon as my friend texts me a screenshot of her period tracker app registering that she is 365 days late, I will tell her she is not late for anything. I will remind her of all the time she has ahead of her. I will send her a card, even if my only option is a homemade one.
Then we will plan our girls trip, maybe to the beach, where we won’t worry about our periods, where we will laugh with the spirit of young girls and reflect as wise women, and feel proud of where we have been, where we are now, and hopeful for where we have yet to go. We will soak in the sun and the sound of the ocean, listening to the waves, their ancient knowledge, the tides doing exactly what they are meant to do.
And it will sound like a beckoning to women around the world, to the killer whales, the Asian elephants, even the Japanese aphids, reminding us to celebrate that we are still here. That we are not yet done. That, maybe, we are just beginning.
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