Bed covers off again, on again and back off again, burning skin and soaking wet clothes -- these are just a few of the highlights for us menopausal women. Others include hair loss from the top of our head. But dont fret because for all thats lost up there, it may begin to grow on our face. And we can count on mood swings to make these symptoms so much easier to handle.
Michelle Slatalla, a columnist for The New York Times, pondered the menopausal mystery in an article she titled, "Fast Forward to Old Age, Please." Slatalla, at her desk and in the middle of a hot flash, called Gail Sheehy, the author of "The Silent Passage" since she knew no one else who would listen.
Sheehy penned the book about menopause after discussing her own mid-life experience in a Vanity Fair article back in October 1991. Sheehy received an overwhelming response from women who wanted to talk more, hear more, and acknowledge what was happening to them and their bodies.
And that makes sense since their friends, neighbors and family, even the female ones going through menopause but denying it, didnt want to hear about it. And why not? Sheehy believes it's because of the falsehood that women during this time swing between rage and gloom, cry over their lost youth and then disappear into old, wrinkled has-beens.
Sheehy wrote her book nearly two decades ago and has lived through menopause to reassure Slatalla in their phone conversation that menopause will pass. And so will we; through a doorway to the brighter side of the hot flash. Sheehy said, Yes, you go through the doorway to the most creative and individual and exciting period of your life, she said. You get to re-invent yourself.
