Put The Book Back - Navigating Menopause

Several years ago I stepped out of the library in San Francisco’s Mission District with three menopause books in my hands and ran right into one of the cute PTA dads from my son’s elementary school. 

“Hi!” he said. 

“Hi!” I said, stopping to talk while immediately wondering how to deflect the inevitable question “what books did you get?” 

Fortunately, he didn't ask that question and either missed or ignored my nervous juggling of the books as I tried to mask titles, spines, and glaring back cover lines announcing “Hot Flashes and Night Sweats!” 

Menopause is a topic and an experience that takes some getting used to and it is not something you want to broadcast to one of the cute PTA dads. Whether he noticed the books or not I don’t know, but I took solace in remembering that he, his wife, and I were all born in the same year, 1961. Menopause was likely a topic and an experience he was becoming familiar with.

The internal panic I felt during that awkward masking-a-secret-while-talking-to-a-cute-guy conversation was only surpassed by one other in memory – a time when a super cute boy entered my open dorm room right after I had farted. I was sitting at my desk while on exchange at the University of Delaware looking at a photo album when he came through the door. As he approached me to look over my shoulder at the album I whipped those large cardboard pages back and forth in hopes of dissipating the gaseous hangover cloud we were now both in the center of. (sigh)

Sometimes your complicated humanness is going to seep out in any number of ways, and life goes on – even if a 35-year old memory can still cause a cringe.

When menopause symptoms first begin, you don’t really know that that’s what’s happening, especially as some of them begin earlier than you might think. What is this? Is this...? How is this whole thing going to go down?

One of the books I checked out of the library had a chirpy, humorous tone as it outlined the litany of things one could experience: hot flashes, mood swings, fatigue, hair loss, sleep disorders, decreased sex drive, lack of concentration, weight gain, dizziness, incontinence, bloating, anxiety, brittle nails, irritability, memory lapses, headaches, panic disorders, dry itchy skin, dry vagina, vaginal atrophy, digestive issues, constipation, and something called “electric shock sensation,” (among other things.) I was really not prepared for the barrage of every single thing that could happen, and especially not ready for the perky tone of that one book. I might lose my ability to concentrate, AND leak in my pants while working for my new much younger male boss! Ha ha! My vagina could dry up, but it may little matter with my new decreased sex drive! Ho Ho!

I told my friend, Donna about the “panic disorders” and “mood swings” being brought on by reading the first few chapters of the “funny” menopause book and she wisely and simply said, “take the book back.”

The reality is that menopause (like everything else) is unique to each woman. We won’t get every possible symptom so why focus or fret on what could happen? More importantly, what will happen will happen regardless of the books we read, and as they do, you just need to accept or alleviate as best you can. (I chose hormone replacement with a low estrogen patch which has helped considerably with the main symptoms I experienced: hot flashes, dry itchy skin, and short-term memory loss. As for the va-jay-jay, one word: Vagifem, an utter godsend first mentioned to me by a woman older than I. Every woman over 50 ought to know about this option just in case.)

Here’s something as unexpected as learning of the litany of possible symptoms: menopause can free a woman in a way she has never known, with age and experience besting the freedoms we may have had in our 20s. Estrogen is a hormone which, in part, drives us to keep the peace at home and at work. Estrogen does some wonderful things, but also participated in fueling the good girl, the helper, the supporter.  One of the (more serious) menopause books I read said that when your estrogen drops, you may find yourself saying "make your own god damned sandwich!” At its best, menopause can be a time for a woman to find herself, figure out what she likes, wants, needs. It can be a time to pursue long-buried dreams or interests, to learn how to paint or skydive or brew beer; to travel or start a business or leave an unhealthy relationship. Menopause can provide an opportunity for a new start and a new perspective.

Imagine running into someone as you come from the library with a stack of books under your arm and being asked what you checked out. Imagine showing them books about learning to brew beer or starting a new business or reading up on Japan in preparation for a trip there. There are so many plans to make when you’re awake in the middle of the night!

Growing Out Gray Hair, How To #4 – Growing a Silver Stripe or Two

In my Feb 17 post I wrote about the method of dying only your part while letting gray come in underneath. I gave that a try but when I abandoned the effort and dyed my hair again, I decided to let one small patch of silver come in as a test, and a nod to my natural color. That patch was not the top most hair next to my face, but was the next layer down and mostly hidden from view. The streak of silver became a bit of a secret, exposed sometimes depending how my hair fell, or showing when I brushed my hand through my hair or pulled my hair back in a clip. 

Using Silver Stripes To Facilitate Growing In The Gray

I dyed my roots every two to three weeks and would exclude the secret patch of white hair and, over time, a few of its neighboring hairs so the patch of gray got incrementally larger. Finally,  in a step toward going all gray, I changed my part to fall right in the middle of those silver hairs and pulled half of them over to the other side of my face. At that point the silver patch was divided in two with strands exposed on both sides of my face. 

Growing the gray streak, increasing the number of hairs in the streak, and then switching my part so silver was exposed on both sides of my face were all steps toward letting all of the gray come in. I was getting used to it, and so were the people in my life.


 

These three pictures were taken the same night in 2016. I grew in a silver stripe just under the top hair on the right side of my face and it showed or didn't show based on how my hair fell naturally or was pulled behind my ear.

I mention this option - growing in a streak of gray - both because the streak was kind of cool, but also because having those silver streaks on either side of my face became an unexpected tool when I started growing out the gray in earnest.  Since my part was increasingly white and stood out, I could (and can) just pull the full length silver hair near my face up over my head and hold it with a clip, and the silver stripes help mask the growing strip of gray down the middle of my head.  In the early months especially, this was a great trick to minimize the skunk stripe. 

 

In the first few weeks - November 2017