Menopause… The Climacteric… “The Change”… Hormonal Gearshifting…. Downward spiral…Or as I called it when I was teasing my mom as a kid, Mental-Pause (I’m sure she loved that).
The name itself conjures only unfortunate concepts. Synonymous with falling off a cliff, being over-ripe or perhaps turning bland and lifeless (and getting shushed while doing it). When you look it up, you’d rather surf just about any other site. Hmm …let me just pull up another tab, I’ve been meaning to look up the square root of Pi… and find a mobile pooper-scooper for my dog. Much of the ‘helpful information’ you find, shoves you headlong into a laundry list of syndromes, symptoms and co-existing conditions and is woefully light. Fat and sweaty, anyone? Creaky and pissed off? Sexless and sleepless? Where do I get off this ride?
Frankly, it’s pretty depressing.
I am 46. I feel, like we all do, like a super-version of me at 27. Smarter, kinder, more confident, but still that same old fun-loving me. This is the year I was told I have already both hit and hurdled that wall that ends fertility, never to be seen again (was somebody handing out medals for that incredible run)? Menopause. Oh, and by the way, I was also given a laundry list of co-existing conditions.
Everyone who ever spoke of menopause to me before this year might as well have been speaking like Charlie Brown’s parents. I can be a very sympathetic listener but, let’s be honest, until it did, it really didn’t apply to me. The reason it’s not generally a topic of discussion over cocktails, brunch or fun-runs is because everything we know about it sucks.
I think we need to change that.
A millstone… or a milestone? A burden… or a gift? An end… or a new beginning. One thing we can be sure of is that it unites us. It’s a road we all must travel. And it may be a long road. I, for one, would rather walk down that road with a posse of incredible women, arm in arm, laughing, joking, drinking a cocktail and telling all. Life is about the journey. So here’s where we begin together to ‘Pause Positively,” to understand it. Redefine it, break it open, own it. And in so doing, change it and change the road ahead.
And may I remind you, as the friend next to you on the road, who wishes to undo all the trivialization, stigma and distaste that this part of a woman’s purpose-lush life has inherited: this does not make you less you, or depreciate your value, substance, meaning or purpose or extinguish your amazing light. Let’s agree instead say it makes you you, to the nth power.
So this is PosPause – designed to give you all of the information that we can give without making it ugly, silly or overly simple. It is curated and yet complex, just all of the women we know. It is designed to give you answers and solutions and access. But mostly, PosPause’s intention is to change the word and association of menopause to Milestone. To make the term Milestone Woman emblematic of the woman who carried and raised a generation, who has overcome everything to be where she is and is the ultimate apex of who we all want to be. Why? Because without her, there would be no us. Nor would there be the Freedoms and certainties they earned and that we’ve come to count on and strive to build on. The journey of Milestone Woman forks here, and the road she takes and who she becomes and who helps her lead that way is impressive, exciting and awe-inspiring.
Lift each other up. That woman who helps raise your children or who raised you. The one on the corner with the beautiful garden or the one who taught you in graduate school, the neuroscientists, astrophysicists and mothers who changed our world. Lift them up, lift her up. If she’s not already, she will be you one day.
Here’s to you, Milestone Women. Thanks for hanging out with Pospause.
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