I always thought this euphemistic – a code for talking about the reproductive system’s cycle as it nears its end – used because this period (or lack thereof to be more precise) embarrassed those in process of it or associated with it.
Everyone said The Change was normal, but spoke in hushed tones. I figured the whispers were more about the inherent embarrassment of being female and talking about something that had anything to do with sex. My conservative Christian upbringing was prudish about sex, women, bodies. . .science. I didn’t understand.
Now, going through The Change, I realize it is an apt and grossly encompassing term that expresses entirely, though not precisely or with detail, what is happening.
It isn’t just THE CHANGE from CYCLE to NON-CYCLE, but also from even-keeled to never-know-when-the-rage-will-hit as well as from straight through the hips to where-in-the-hell-did-this-ass-come-from.
The Change is having to, again, come to terms with a changing body and psyche and pathos which is difficult enough once in a lifetime, but twice? COME ON.
My face breaks out. My hair gets brittle and thin and mousy brown. I HAVE TO SHAVE MY FACE. My memory sputters and stops sometimes – words go to ether in my brain.
My body surges with some chemical warfare and suddenly my skin is aflame AND soaking wet. When I’m asleep, this wakes me up like a fire alarm. My bedside fan and hairclip are my most prized possessions.
New wrinkles appear on the reg, and I finally get why my grandmother wore turtlenecks even in the summer. My boobs have lengthened abnormally, and as Rachel Welch told Oprah, this stage of life is truly Men On Pause – libido has caught the last train along with my menses. . .and the train has pulled out of the station.
There is more: The dimply skin, the worsening GERD, the next-day price of indulging in bread or sugar or dairy. . .my body simply does not bounce back as it did. . .
And while it is all the rage to say 50 is the new 40 OR to find the positive spin to the curveballs. . .well, it glosses over the grief that simply needs expressing.
For changing means that something is being lost as much as gained, and grief must have its due. So this is mine to own and mine to reconcile while figuring the gain (that isn’t just on the scale). . .
Because I don’t want to be embarrassed or cowering about this change as I’m not 12 years old anymore. Maybe I’ve never needed to be either embarrassed or cowering, but I bought into the lie. . .another grief for a different day.
So I am changing in more ways than I ever expected. I just ask, Lord, that with this change, I grow further into all I am meant to be and I recognize myself as more truly myself with each reincarnation.
(8/18/22)
Photo from https://www.travelweek.ca/blog/independent-insights-change-is-good/
