How come perimenopause hasn’t made it as dictionary word of the year?

Half the population goes through it, but I had never heard about it before the pandemic, when so many middle-aged women finally got to slow down for a minute and write about stuff they’d just been silently living through for generations. 

First, I read, ‘Why we can’t sleep’ by Ada Calhoun and it blew my mind - even the chapters I thought had nothing to do with me, had something to do with me - so many of us trying to keep our lives under control while our bodies are literally spinning out of it.

Then there was Dr. Jen Gunter’s ‘Menopause Manifesto’, which provided a medical health context that I hadn’t even heard of. Heartburn in perimenopausal women could be an early indicator of heart disease? Lifting weights? There could be up to 20 years of symptoms before you actually hit menopause? 

How is this not the only conversation women are having? 

Right. We’re busy having conversations about everything and everyone but ourselves. 

That had to change. 

I started asking friends about their periods these days and talked about my hot flushes, my 2 periods a year, my belly fat that just kept hanging on. My foggy brain, my forgetfulness (worse than normal), my mood swings (worse than normal) and the utter joy I feel at the thought of freedom from the cultural expectations of reproduction that non-menstruating women can enjoy. 

I imagined myself a woman untouched by comments of biological clocks, finding the right person to couple with and ‘settle down’ re. have kids. 

I imagined myself just saying, ‘my eggs are done’.

Who could say anything to that?

The more I started talking about perimenopause, its symptoms and all of the things I was looking forward to about actual menopause, the more I found alignment with women my own age and also those a generation ahead of me - women who were already there and whose faces light up when asked questions about their experiences - reveling in being the resource they wish they had when they were going through ‘the change’ as my grandmother called it. 

How wonderful to find community by just simply talking out loud about something shared between all women, but that we have been socialized to ignore. How amazing to be heard, understood and held as we change.