Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon

I should have seen it coming. Summer of 1987 would be the longest time spent without my family. For eight weeks, I would be at sleep away camp in Eagle River, Wisconsin. I should have known this would be the time that I would mysteriously shit my pants for 5 days straight. During this time, I not only went through a lot of underwear, but I also wrote my oldest sister, Lauren, play-by-play letters about this occurrence, with illustrations. “Here is my underwear. When I go to the bathroom, it’s all stained brown. I don’t know how this is happening. I don’t know what to do.” 

I finally told my closest friend at camp, a school buddy who had come up from Chicago with me. She told me I should tell our counselor. Well, the good news was that I was not in fact shitting my pants. She took me to the camp director’s office so I could call my parents. It was a call you were only allowed to make on your birthday or for an emergency. The male camp director, Sandi, started the conversation with them by saying, “Your daughter has become a woman.” 

This might have been worse than actually shitting my pants. He handed me the phone and I immediately started crying because it was so good to hear my mom’s voice and also because she was so far away and also because I was so ill-equipped to deal with what was apparently a milestone. The counselor gave me some extra-large pads, or perhaps regular-sized pads that were extra-large for an 11-year old. I made my friend walk behind me to let me know if she could see it. She said she couldn’t. This “lookout routine” continued for the remainder of my period, the summer and throughout middle school. As my classmates joined me, I helped return the favor.

I did not plan to be a trendsetter. I did not want my period first. Maybe somewhere in the middle of the herd. In your tweens, you just want to be like everyone else. You want to blend in. And I did not. I got my period first. And my boobs last. 

I should have seen it coming. It was months since my last period. I didn’t really miss it but I wasn’t sure where it had gone. Like a familiar face on your commute. You don’t really think of them too much until they stop showing up. And that’s just what happened. 

First, I rejoiced at the novelty. It was like being on that special birth control pill where you only flow once a season. I mentioned it to my gynecologist who replied, “It sounds like you’re in perimenopause.” 

All I heard was menopause. 

“No, I mean, it’s… I’m only 42.”

“It can start in your early 40’s” she assured me, without assuring me at all. 

On the way home I tried to see the bright side. No one likes their period. Now it’s going away. That’s a good thing. But what I was stuck with was the finality of it. I wasn’t planning to have kids but now I couldn’t. I couldn’t fully function as a female. “Your daughter has completed womanhood.” And even worse than removing “baby maker” from my core capabilities, the start of menopause was like a cruel nudge toward my mortality.

As I was coming to terms with this change, what came next was much worse. Hot flashes. At first, it was actually more of a hot flush. A sudden heat on the back of my neck and some rosy cheeks. “Ok, I can handle this,” I thought. The flushes grew into face sweats. It happened in a Marshall’s dressing room so I took a selfie of my face visibly glistening and send it to my sister Lauren with the accompanying text “Is this happening to you too?” 

“It just actually just started,” she texted back. 

I was happy to have company but Lauren is ten years older than me. How did I beat both her and our middle sister to menopause? How was I first, AGAIN?

I googled this phenomenon and found that early menopause happens more frequently to women who have not had children. It’s evolution, of course. Truly, if you do not use it, you do in fact lose it. 

At my annual visit to my internal medicine doctor, I sheepishly mentioned my hot flashes. He couldn’t prescribe hormones but told me that exercise may help and that I should avoid spicy food. He also recommended Black Cohosh pills. I followed his instructions but the sweats were only getting more frequent. At one point, I counted 20 in one day, most of which were at night. Then one day, a more senior friend told me that quitting coffee made her hot flashes go away completely. I loved my coffee. It was one of my favorite traditions. My partner made a cup with a delicious cloud of almond milk on top for me every morning like clockwork. He delivered it to me in bed and our dog would hop up next to me to beg for her daily dollop of foam. If any part of my life was a rom com, it was this. And in order to stop spontaneously sweating, I would need to give it up. Or at least try and see what happened. 

After a month without any caffeine in my system, it worked. “They may take away our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!” (Braveheart) In a couple weeks, I began feeling overconfident and tried coffee once again. I learned that one cannot outsmart menopause. The hot flashes returned. 

I considered my new options. I could still drink decaf tea. I could consume milder food. And I could enjoy wine, or so I thought. This was another tough setback. As were other new triggers like eating mango and eating too many carbs in one sitting. I kept taking notes and readjusting. I would whack-a-mole menopause until I won.

But with all the focus on the sweating, I neglected to address all the other gifts from menopause. Sex became a painful and nearly impossible feat. My hair was falling out in knotty clumps with each wash. I spent most nights lying awake or awakened multiple times, either by anxiety or rolling heat waves. Sleepless nights set the stage for my favorite gift, brain fog. I struggled to remember names and dates and who I last talked to about something. Was it over email? Was it on chat? Was it a phone call? Was this confusion just because there are so many possible ways to contact people these days? Why is it so hot right now?

A bright light in this dark time has been my partner. I talk about menopause a lot. He hasn’t complained about this or about all of its gifts. He simply said, “I feel like your body is betraying you.” It was the most insightful and heartfelt observation I had ever heard. Most of all, it took away the shame I had been feeling. Because when something is wrong, it’s wrong with you. And the wrong begins to take the place of you.  

I wasn’t prepared for the start of my period and I was even less prepared for the end. All I can do now is find comfort in a wolfpack of women who are going through it too. It’s the new “lookout routine” just 35 years later. I tell them, “Some days it’s going okay and others really crush my confidence.” They offer their own stories and trials of remedies, both successful and less so. Despite not knowing how to fix most of it, I’m happy I can call them anytime.