It’s not a good year to be menopausal, frankly

by Claire Isaac

Look, I know times are tough here – I’m under no illusions about the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic on anyone with the slightest bit of anxiety let alone any health issues.

I know how lucky I am to live where I do, when looking around the world at how much loss and suffering there is thanks to the virus.

I — like many — doomscroll like a demon. And I hate myself for it.

I am clued up about how the angst of American politics could be making even the most mild-mannered members of society into drunks, lushes and pill poppers. I have drunk more gin since March 2020 than I thought possible.

I’m totally across how thousands of Australians want to come home, and can’t, and how thousands more just want to leave, to get on a flight again and have a goddam holiday. (And yes, I know that we should be “holidaying at home” this year, too, and yes, I will be.)

I’m also aware that I, like many, have exhausted all the good stuff on Netflix, and I am refusing to watch the bad stuff just because it’s there. Though I did watch The Prom, so you know… glass houses and all that.

“Ha, she said she’d never watch us! AND, she even enjoyed it…”

I know that shopping and public transport is no fun wearing a mask and yet we will have to pop one on for months to come — and therefore my chin will never have a full application of foundation again. Nor my nose, for that matter. My top lip, beaded at the best of times, will be damp til May as I stew in my own sweat while in the ALDI chocolate aisle.

And I am not alone in my discomfort, I get that.

I also know that work is different now for most people i know — that offices are half full, that some (like me) are squeezed into a one-bedroom, trying to work effectively while also trying to not kill their spouse for talking loudly, and that many more are finding it tough out there to make ends meet.

I get all that. And I understand it all. And I feel it too.

“My top lip, beaded at the best of times, will be damp til May as I stew in my own sweat while in the ALDI chocolate aisle.”

A friend — we shall call her Lisa — said to me recently that she was overreacting to a lot of things at the moment, which I said was possibly the same for many people right now, dealing with all of the above stresses of life in 2021. We have so much on our plates, we can’t possibly squeeze another thing on them. Things we could deal with way back in, ooh 2019, are now insurmountable, when cooked up with COVID, Trump and the recession.

Familiar?

We are collectively Monty Python’s Mr Creosote — filled to our brims, while suddenly being told by, well… life, to have a ‘wafer thin mint’.

It’s too much.

And on top of that, I am meno-flipping-pausal.

Yep, on top of COVID angst and teary fits, I have hormonal crying — sobbing about my cat dying when he isn’t even sick, about the chest of drawers being too full, about buying a new iPad (don’t ask).

“We are collectively Monty Python’s Mr Creosote — filled to our brims, while suddenly being told by, well… life, to have a ‘wafer thin mint’. ”

I also have cramps, mystery pangs, sudden pains.

I have a lot more chin hairs (though — bright side — they get hidden by the mask).

I also have more chins on which to find them.

I have dry skin. I have tired legs. I have to remember to take my pills.

I am HOT ALL THE TIME. Like, boiling. Like, really comedic notions of hot flushes-style hot. I have always run hot but now, oi vey, it’s an oven in here and can’t we just open a frickin’ window?

My husband lies under a winter-weight quilt at night, while I blast the air con and lie under a cold flannel.

I have a short fuse. Like Lisa, I can go from 0-200 in the space of a second, but unlike Lisa, mine is what she has plus whatever is caused by being 52.

I have nowhere to go from here. I’ve reached my limit, with the combo of all the aforementioned angst, stress and worry over life in 2021, about my family, my friends, the entire world — the addition of the hormonal changes of being a woman of a certain age means that I just… COULDN’T. POSSIBLY. FIT. ANOTHER. THING. IN.

Menopause is my wafer thin mint.

Nope, it’s just not a good year to be menopausal…