xoxoxo…

I would love to be a woman who felt that aging is a spiritual and magical experience. But I’m not. I am a pragmatic person and although I do believe that aging has its positives, for the ego, it blows. Also, I think it is much more clunky for women. Men seem to become more interesting and distinguished as they get older according to society. Their hair starts to gray and it’s hot. The lines in their faces start to deepen and they look rugged and able to hammer something. Where as women, if they’re like me (and I think most are) look in the mirror as the years pass and think WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK??

I was 50 when I first started to notice the little things. The volume in my face slimming (oh Hello wrinks!) while the volume of my body thickens. The hair on my head thinning as the hair on my face becomes downy. And the troughs (I mean what kind of pervert came up with the name Nasolabial Folds?) on either side of my nose down to my mouth seem to be sinking vertically toward the back of my skull. And that’s just the physical. The emotions of aging are the real whore in church.

Let’s face it, menopause is a 2 by 4 swung directly to the ovaries. NO MORE EGGS FOR YOU! All of a sudden your hormones are at Mardi Gras flashing their tits, throwing up in the street and crying in the gutter. Wholly out of control! It is so perversely jarring at first and then begins what I equate to the 5 stages of grief. You deny it’s happening and then you’re pissed because you KNOW it’s happening. You start to bargain. Praying to your god, manifesting, chanting or whatever, things like Let me have my flat stomach back and I’ll just live with the unholy night sweats. Next is abject depression. This one is a BEAST. It can take over your waking and sleeping worlds. It grabs a hold of you like a hungry child and feels like it will swallow you whole. Finally there is the lightness of acceptance. The realization that even though this rollercoaster you’re on seems to have been built in 1884 and is precarious at best, there are solutions to all of the symptoms. Hormone replacements, exercise, anti-depressants and a lot more. We don’t have to sit in shit and just act like it’s all okay. It’s not. It’s real and can feel really lonely. Talk about it. Scream about it and cry. Just don’t stay silent. That’s the loneliest space of them all.

And bonus…Now at 53 years old I could confidently tell the 14-year-old me that spent a week eating lunch alone in a bathroom stall, Girl you will eventually not give a shit what ANYONE thinks of you! xoxo