YAAW - Yet Another Aging Woman

I Look Forward to Hearing from You and the Cat

While I'm on the subject of menopause, I will admit to moments of craziness. Hubby and I had our children late, two boys born when I was 37 and 39 respectively. That put them squarely in early adolescence when I began to suspect that I was perimenopausal. What was the first clue, you ask? A sudden urge to scream. A total void of patience.

I hope it wasn't too often, but I do remember screaming about boys who just couldn't seem to get ready to go in the morning. And another time screaming at boys when I found out they'd been ditching swim practice. I'm sure I warped their tender psyches. 

That's the only reasonable explanation for this letter, written by our younger son from boot camp.

Hot Flash!

Have you ever had a hot flash? The Mayo Clinic website says that as many as 3 out of 4 women have hot flashes associated with menopause. WebMD puts the figure at two thirds of North American women. (Now I wonder about that distinction. Maybe if I lived on another continent, I'd have fewer hot flashes?)

For more than you ever wanted to know about hot flashes, visit Alice Lotto Stamm's website, power-surge.com. Alice, known online as Dearest, is the coiner of the alternative term for this common phenomenon, and her eponymous website, dedicated to educating us about all things menopausal, is in its 17th year online. Long before Google, the website has its roots in AOL. Remember them?

My family has a long tradition of power surges. My high school years were played out against the background of my mother's turbulent passage to menopause. In fact, sometimes my high school years were played out in the background while my mother's hi-jinks dominated the foreground. Talk about a hostile environment -- teen-aged girl hormones and perimenopausal hormones in the same house.

My sisters and I made a pact -- we're to immediately let any offender know if she's acting "just like Mother". So far, we've managed to avoid the major craziness. The minor stuff, maybe not so much.

We haven't managed to avoid the hot flashes. One sister lived for years with particularly vicious night sweats. I feel fortunate to have only regular minimum-three-a-day self-saunas. Although the symptoms have abated somewhat with time, ten years after the official declaration, I still wake up in the dark of early, early morning, feeling the heat building. Here it comes. Aaaagh, throw off the quilts!

What can I say. It's in our genes.

I wonder if Dearest still has hot flashes?

heat rises

heat rises, they say.
cold air is heavy.

some nights
the heat rushes up
and through my skin
and jerks me awake, BANG!
HOT FLASH!

I expect
one of these nights
I'll levitate
right up to the ceiling.

heat rises, you know.

Oh! I Guess I Am A Little Old Lady

19 September 2010

This decade seems to be a good one for going gray. My Google Search for "aging women gray hair" turned up an amazing variety of links. "Gray is the new black" is the teaser for one link. "Gray Hair is a Crown of Splendor" says another. (Huh!) Alternet and Huffington Post have something to say about graying. TIME has a 2007 article "The War Over Going Gray". You can learn why hair turns gray, read about links between stress and gray hair, find pictures of hairstyles for gray hair, and inquire into putative cures and treatments for gray hair. There are even claims that gray haired women get more hits on dating sites.

Going gray is a personal decision. 2008 was the year for me. Our youngest son had graduated from high school, so I no longer needed to worry about being mistaken for his grandparent. (Yes, it really did happen to my husband, who has been gray since his 30s.) Hubby and I were planning a number of trips abroad -- where would I get my hair colored and my acrylic nails repaired? So there was a practical reason to go gray. I was getting ready to retire, another pressure point relieved. And not having to fork out major $$ every six weeks for a touchup was simply a bonus.

There's no good way to go from color to gray. I consulted with the hairdresser, and opted for a very short cut. And I kept it short until the color had all grown out, about four months.

Like my mother and one of my sisters, my hair is salt and pepper. (My other sisters don't show much gray at all, and they're all older than me. Guess I got the wrong genes, but that's a post for another day.) Like my mother, I have a thick streak of white on top. Oh, how I would like to have a head of silver like Helen Mirren, but it is not to be.

The mop is curly and still quite thick, so I count my blessings. I let it grow long again, then cut it this spring before our last big trip. Right now it's in layers with the longest about chin length.

The texture as well as the color changed. Where I used to get by with a serum to control frizz, I now need a mousse. And I use purple shampoo to avoid yellowing. Most days I'm OK with the gray.

What really irritates me is how often I now get the little-old-lady treatment.

I bring my own reusable bags to the grocery store. They're sturdy and hold quite a lot. Sometimes it takes two hands to swing one out of the cart and into the car. So one day, as I'm manhandling my groceries (I lift weights three times a week, by the way) a nice woman getting out of her car in the space next to mine asks, "Can I help you with that, dear?" I look over my shoulder, trying to find the little old lady to whom she is speaking. Oh, wait! She's speaking to me!

She couldn't have been a day under 55. But her hair wasn't gray.

No matter how old you are, what you've got is never the right thing

Our bodies change, oh, yes, they change. I am short and basically have no waistline. Neither of those things has changed, but ... When I was younger, like many of my contemporaries, any excess weight gravitated toward hip and thigh. My calves were what one might charitably call "well developed", the result of years of hill walking.

I used to observe my stepmother, in her late 50s and early sixties, with envy. Her arms and legs were so nice and skinny! So she had a little tummy, no big deal. I'd like to be like that.

Well, time and nature took care to grant my wish. Was I grateful? This is what I wrote:

Vanity

When I was young I put on weight
At thigh and derriere.
I sighed to view my silhouette,
Alas, quite like a pear.

I dreamed that with maturity
I'd lose those hefty hams.
I'd never be a wasp-waist but
I'd love my skinny gams.

So here I am now, middle aged,
My legs so thin and tan.
I sigh to view my silhouette,
Alas, a Michelin Man.

A Woman Aging

This is not about anti-aging. This is not advice for aging gracefully. This is not about a medical condition, although one or two of those might grace an occasional post.

What this is, is an effort to find the common threads of experience that bind us, aging women, as a community.

As I recall, the first time in my adult life that I felt a really strong sense of community was when I became pregnant. I felt like I had suddenly become a member of the club. We could all talk endlessly about our experiences, and it was fascinating. I feel it yet today, when a young woman for whom I babysat announces her first pregnancy.

While aging has a somewhat different demographic than pregnancy, I believe that somewhere on the spectrum between a boring recital of physical symptoms and a steadfast refusal to acknowledge our aging minds and bodies, there is that commonality, that unity of experience, that community of aging women.