Sex in Menopause: Grin? Or Just Bear It?

Just about everybody has a preconceived idea of what menopause will be like and when it begins. Women accustomed to catastrophic thinking may worry it will hit them as early as their mid-30s (very rare). Women who are menophobic may refuse to acknowledge they are in menopause. And some of us are just plain ignorant.

I was 48 and recently remarried, quietly reading on a snowy Sunday night and playing footsie with my new husband, when a little explosion went off in my brain. It felt like a power surge. I looked down at the pages I had just finished reading and my mind was blank. I felt hot, then clammy and cold. I lay down, but my heart began racing. For the first time since my earliest period, I felt profoundly ill-at-ease within my body.

As more mysterious changes followed over the next few months -- sudden energy crashes, bouts of the blues, bloating, headaches, heart palpitations, mind fogs and, of course, hot flushes -- I began to wonder if I was losing it. Not only losing my mind, but losing my usual sexual élan. I felt about as desirous and desirable as a day-old bread that's been reheated in the microwave.

The worst part was the fear that this metamorphosis was going to change me into an old woman overnight, and I would never be the same me again.

Well, I was right about the last part. I'm not the same "me" as I was in my First Adulthood. But I feel like anything but an old woman, despite the fact that I now have 15 more years of tread on my wheels. All those mysterious maladies subsided as I went over the hump of what singer Joni Mitchell calls the "middle-life crazies." I came out the other side feeling stronger and surer than ever -- and sexier, too.

Why? Because I'm less inhibited. Older is bolder.