1

My love and I are planning a one-day road trip for our five-year anniversary (thank you, it’s been amazing) and I’m at the grocery store. Mission: Road Trip Snacks. It’s not going well. I’m paralized. I can’t remember what we like to eat. What works well as car/picnic food. Basically, I can’t remember how to think. There’s a big hole where my brain used to be. I’m not actually a living human being right now. I’m a photo-zombie, low-key animated by my medulla oblongata and my reptilian brain. The higher functions are non-existent.

One of two things will happen now I will leave the store without being a single thing or I will put a bunch of random things, none of which we actually like to eat, in my cart. The proto-zombie is aware of this and unhappy, in a zombie-like fashion.

Secret option number three: Fuck road trip snacks. We can just get food on the way. We’re not going that deep into rural Alberta. Right?

(This does not seem to be a viable option, because, like, what is a road trip without car snacks?)

Secret option number four: I outsource the problem and get my partner to pick up the snacks. This does not seem to be a viable option either. I don’t feel good about it. Because, like, it’s our anniversary and I should put some effort into the pre-game plan, you know?

The photo-zombie remains paralyzed. The reptilian brain enters flight mode. Staring at shelf upon shelf of chips, I am on the verge of tears.

Thanks very much, Menopause. Thanks a lot.

2

Ok, so I know—snacks will be gotten. Somehow. And if they are not, food will be acquired en route some other way. We will not starve to death in a ditch in rural Alberta, leaving our carcasses for the vultures to feed on. Nor will we spend the day hungry and hangry. The stakes here are very low. My problem is not a real problem. But the part of my brain that knows this does not exist right now. And the part that is animating my photo-zombie body is, well, crying. In the chip aisle of Safeway.

Fuck. My. Life.

3

The mantra: Everything passes.

(It’s not helping.)

4

Talking with older women—the survivors—about menopause is a lot like talking with breeding women about child birth. The recollection is foggy. Also, in the handful of cases where I can verify their recollection with my own recollection of what they did, said and said they felt at the time—false. They’re not lying, mind you. It’s just—selective, protective remembering. Like childbirth. Even if they (we) recall the facts (“I was in labour for thirty-six hours!”), they don’t really remember how awful it was (“And then, the baby was in my arms and it was all worth it.”)

Myself, I actually remember the moment when I fog it all, in my one non-epidural birth: The baby popped out, the happy hormones flooded me, and the preceding hours os screaming and contemplating death erased in a blink, worth it, all worth it, nothing was better than holding this tiny perfect miracle in my arms.

But ten minutes earlier, I was in so much pain, I did not think I could endure another minute… 

Do I really remember the pain?

No.

I remember the after, the pain is the faintest echo.

Anyway. Talking with the survivors? It doesn’t help. They remember it through a fog. And, they don’t really like to remember it, not even them Gen X women who can’t shut up about it while going through it. And who can blame them?

It really, really sucks.

(I’d like to thank, though, all the Gen X women who can’t shut up about it. Create that record while you’re in it. No one before you has.)

5

I’m not on HRT because, reasons, and I don’t have to justify them to you any more than I would have to justify going on HRT, choosing an epidural or unmedicated childbirth, getting an IUD or an abortion, ok? But I’m doing all the other things. No caffeine (god I miss it). No alcohol. Excellent sleep hygiene. A healthy diet, vitamins, fairly regular exercise. Dancing and sex. Getting out of the house on a semi-regular basis. Socializing almost against my will, because we all know isolation makes nothing better. Making lists of all the things that make me happy and trying to do them. Etc.

It’s hard.

I don’t think I’ve ever found the simple act of living so hard before. And I haven’t exactly led a charmed life.

6

Still in the grocery store. Chip aisle. I don’t like chips. I’ll eat them every once in a while—corn tortilla chips, zest of lime, smothered with cheese. Why did I even start the shopping trip here?

Suddenly, I’m outside the proto-zombie body with a hole where her brain used to be—but still in the chip aisle.  Outside the body, this body that’s betraying me constantly, I am, suddenly, more myself. I still can’t remember what we like to eat or what foods make good road trip snacks.

But my situation, including my misery, is kind of hilarious. I can spin a story about it. A little funny. A little poignant. Maybe a little useful.

The story grounds me. And suggests secret option five: Going to the neighbourhood bakery and getting a baguette, maybe some pastries. Hardboiling some eggs at home, already have eggs, don’t have to buy. And oh, maybe I could pick up some Hungarian sausage at the Farmer’s Market? And some good cheese?

This is a plan I can execute.

Why all of this seems more doable than just picking up chips and Gatorade at Safeway, I can’t tell you. 

Menopause. Right. Menopause.

xoxo

“Jane”

P.S. Road trip was amazing. So were the snacks. Peak happiness experienced. Grocery store crash forgotten. I wrote it down for you, against the day when I forget all of this and claim it was just a few months of hot flashes and not that big a deal. You’re welcome.