When it's time to change, you've got to rearrange
When it's time to change, you've got to rearrange
Sha na na na na na na na na, sha na na na na.
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For some of you, the title of this post alone put that song in your head. For others, you’re going to watch this video and wonder, “What on earth is this garbage?” That is what Gen X-ers filled their heads with every day after school, young friends. Consider yourselves lucky that you were spared. You got to watch “Adventure Time,” probably.
I’ve been thinking about transformations and how strange and unnerving they are. Take menopause. Why did I think this wouldn’t be a highly awkward transition? Probably because no one told me a single thing about it? Where’s the Judy Blume book about menopause, JUDY?
Did you know that caterpillars turn into goo before they become butterflies? Did you know this? Talk about rearranging! They don’t just sprout wings in their cocoon; they literally digest their lil’ caterpillar bodies and turn into soup. Then that soup somehow becomes a butterfly. Or its letdown of a cousin, the lowly moth.
So maybe I’m soup, right now. But I’m becoming a butterfly? (A moth.) (An elderly moth with one weirdly coarse chin hair.) Every post-menopausal woman I know seems to be living her Best Life, so that’s something to look forward to. But I think it’s going to take some work to get there. These days, in my pupa stage, I need to nap every afternoon. It’s not a fun option; it’s mandatory. At 4pm my eyes slam shut. And when I get up from that nap, or really when I get up from anything, my feet are sore, like I’ve run a marathon. I’m gingerly mincing around on my tender tender feet. But then after a few minutes they feel normal again? Also, everything creaks when I stand up or sit down or move my head. My parts are all shifting and rearranging. My brain is rearranging, too. I forget words like “pathologize” and “cat.” I’m less of a menopausal soup and more like a, oh what’s the word. A catastrophe.
I’m not (just) complaining, I mean yes I am complaining, but also also I’m sure I’m not alone in this. Surely you, my rapidly aging fellow humans, you have experienced some of this as well? Not just me old and crumbling? And then I want to acknowledge that there are ways that that this new physically messy existence seems to work for me, mentally. I give much less of a shit about my appearance, which was something that used to take up far too much of my psychic energy. (I have to consciously remind myself to, say, tone down my Highly Dramatic Bedhead before I leave the house.) And I feel oddly content. (Although maybe this is all the medication, ha ha! Ha! I take many pills.) I am keenly aware, for instance, that this little town we’ve moved to would have sent me into a spiral of depression 20 years ago. So small! So quiet! And now I love it.
I’m working on slowing the cascade of physical deterioration, lifting weights and eating less junk and so forth. I’m trying to get Scott to walk with me every day, but he’s fighting the process. Because he’s “busy” or whatever. I manage to get him out, but he won’t go the distance.
Alice: We have to get 10,000 steps a day.
Scott: Who says?
A: They do. [Looks at phone.] We only got 5000 steps. This is half as many as we have to get.
S: What’s gonna happen if we don’t?
A: [shrugs] Death.
S: You’re saying that like it’s a bad thing.
[Scene.]
AND FINALLY
One of my readers recently asked me about this piece I wrote about perimenopause many years ago on the blog, because when I thought the “peri” part was as bad was it was going to get. I was so cute. Here it is:
Perimenopause: a fun little play
(God and the Archangel Michael, ironing out some last details about humanity)
The Archangel Michael: Dear God, how do we inform women that it’s time to stop procreating?
God: What do you mean, “time to stop”?
Michael: Well, they can’t do it when they’re 80, right? Their bones would break.
God: Oh, they’ll certainly be dead by 50. Look how many diseases I made up. (Points to diseases.)
Michael: But let’s say they figure out how to wash their hands. Once they invent soap someone’s going to live longer than that, King of Kings.
God: “Soap?” Christ. Okay, so we end things. Let’s say, 40, they’re done. No, 55.
Michael: You said they’d be dead by…
God: Somewhere between 40 and 55. Leave it up to them.
Michael: Leave it up to… ?
God: Their bodies or whatever. Their bodies are temples, right? Didn’t I make that up?
Michael: And how will they become aware this is happening?
God: Cause their menses to cease, obviously. I COMMAND CESSATION!
Michael: It’s just us, All Knowing One. You don’t have to blow out my eardrums.
God: Sorry, sorry.
Michael: So it just … doesn’t come back? That seems rude.
God: You think they need a warning? You’re right, they need a warning.
Michael: I mean, it might be nice—
God: Hot flashes.
Michael: Excuse?
God: Yea, their bodies shall verily heat from within, as if an inner fire rages.
Michael: So they heat up, and then they know the childbearing years are over?
God: It happens just, like, from time to time, for a while.
Michael: What does a while mean?
God: Between 1 and 10 years! You know I hate details, Michael.
Michael: Got it. Some hot flashes for … a while.
God: Also mood swings. We’re going to make them angry. And then freaked out. And then angry again. And hot!
Michael: You already said hot.
God: It’s such an important part of the process. For some reason.
(Michael begins backing out of room)
God: Also! Their menses shall be royally fucked for a good long while. One cycle might be 15 days, the next one 96. Just really all over the fucking place. So that when it does go away, they’re nothing but pleased.
Michael: (stares at Him)
God: Isn’t that nice? Isn’t that a nice thing I’m doing? They’re not thinking about mortality when their bodies are going haywire.
Michael: I mean—
God: Wait! And pimples. They’re going to break out like they’re teenagers.
Angel: God, why—
God: That’ll teach them to live that long.
Michael: Okay, well. Good job, My Lord. I think we have a good long list now, so…
God: Oh, I’m just getting started.
Michael: (sighs, takes out notepad again)
God: Look, this is just for fun. We both know they’re never going to learn to wash their hands.
Boy, do I feel seen!!! I am exactly in the same spot. The tender feet that start to feel better? Sounds 100% like Plantar fasciitis, something I've been dealing with for a year. It’s forced me out of shoes I fooled myself into thinking were vaguely fashionable and into shoes that I’m fooling myself into thinking are vaguely athletic. But I also don’t care as much about how I look in public anymore anyway. I too feel an odd contentedness, and am holding on to that as the seed from which my “best life” will grow…so I can start living it already. For now, I’m distracted by the fact that my body is literally falling apart. And growing weird hairs. Oh, and I’m super made at Judy too for never writing a book to prepare me for this.
And then when the woman turns 76, after having delivered three children in her 20s, she begins her next adult stage, bladder leaks. They come and go, especially when she moves from a reclining position to standing. Desperately, she tries training. It worked with the kids, right? One day, after another sudden trip to the bathroom, horror spreads across her face when she sees security from now on as a cupboard full of Poise pads. Her mother lived to 100.