Hot Flashes

I have been researching how to get my luxuriantly leafed poinsettia to bloom for Christmas, enjoying the antics of Kenya and Tango, baking banana bread, simmering autumnal soups, potting up rosemary plants for the winter, putting away deck chairs and solar lamps, starting up my heating which will jump my hydro bills tenfold (now if only I could get my income to do the same), watching the fall colours take over, and wondering when the nine Merganser ducks on the lake will head south. (They have survived surprisingly well this season. Usually by now the original brood of a dozen is down to two or three.)

I have also been enduring hot flashes that create hot spots in my bed that make me think of running my hand over the ironing board after ironing cottons. They keep me awake for an hour each time even though my body cools down after a few minutes. During the day they trick me into thinking my house is warm, so there are some benefits. Maybe there is some way to use them to heat the radiant floor.

What I have not been doing is writing. I find that any irregular but frequent intrusions on my peace destroy my ability to think for any length of time. These suffusions are destroying brain cells as well, I am certain.

One of my children gave me a book by Susun Weed back in 1992 when I was 52 and could have been expected to need guidance through menopause. I didn't expect to need it at 68 ... but the symptoms I endured for a year at 60, and sent into abeyance with HRT are back in full force.

Weed's crone says, "....your Menopausal Change lets loose lightning-like hot flashes and waves of energy that free your feelings and stir your spirit....strong energies will move within you...allow those hot flashes and sleepless nights to guide you into metamorphosis and initiation."

Weed goes on to say that our society, with its emphasis on youth, its denigration of old people, especially women, who become even more powerless, even more invisible in old age, does not give us the support and acceptance when we become menopausal that is afforded in other societies. We are supposed to go through the change invisibly. I think that may be changing as women make jokes about the flashes and sweats, as women are more open about such things.

I hope Susun Weed is right, that this is a passage through fireworks into something better, and that I have the energy left to enjoy it.