“Do you have a tampon?” my daughter whispers to me. Have I. Another. I’ve been bleeding profusely for two weeks now. “Didn’t you know you were going to have your period?” I whisper softly. “You’re way too early,” she says softly. And desperate. Of course I give it to her. Let’s just hope there’s enough toilet paper in this restaurant after that. A pharmacy or a shop are far and wide not in sight. We’re at my grandmother’s funeral.
Damn menopause is killing me. I hate everything about them. The hormonal changes, the physical, the mental. But: The longer, the more I realize that I’m in a kind of puberty 2.0. And that actually has something good: I can understand my adolescent children in a way that was not the case before. Even though I was a teenager myself, it’s been so long that I only remember a few things.
But now it’s all hitting me again, full width. The bleeding. First none at all for five weeks – how nice was that. Then it started again. In the past four weeks I have not bled for exactly four days. Sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker in between, but usually so hard that I bled through a tampon within an hour. (How grateful I am for the home office. I don’t know how I should have gone to the office. Or taken the train.) In between I was lamenting with my daughter on the couch, one jug on the stomach, one in the lower back. I understand very well that she was not in the mood for physical education in that condition.
The physical changes aren’t too bad either. My son grew over 4 inches last year – and he lay down from all the joint pain. I smiled lovingly at the fact that they both panicked and searched their faces for pimples more or less every day. And now? Will I get the crisis as soon as a spot appears on me that doesn’t belong there. Not to mention that sometimes I feel like I’m about to burst out of my skin. There are days when I feel like I’m wearing clothes that are too tight, even when I’m naked. Then I would want to hide in my room all day – just like my teenagers.
Since my body is so stressful for me, I understand yours is too. Probably even more than me – after all, I have some experience and know that things pass. You don’t have this one yet. And then the psyche. It is my children’s turn to find their place in society. Who are they, who do they want to be, who do they want to be when overnight it feels like they’re not kids anymore?
No one can understand better than I how frightening this process is for her. Who am I to my children if I am no longer the mother who directs their path, cares for them and makes decisions? Who will I become when I can no longer define my femininity through my role as a mother and my fertility? Who do I want to be when I have the freedom to define myself independently of my motherhood and my fertility?
So there we are, the three of us, wrestling with our hormones, our bodies, our psyches. I understand every slammed door, every cry, every breakdown from a pimple. I don’t know if that helps them. Ironically, it helps me. Because I’m not alone Maybe it was the right time to have children after all.
Do you also experience menopause and puberty? How do you experience that? Or just one or the other? I look forward to your experiences in the comment column.
