Madonna, Menopause and Me…

…Otherwise known as the story of how I conquered menopause and restored my position as Mistress of My Universe. A story which may be of interest to you depending on where you’re at in life.

It’s a long story that starts with a short dream in which I am being sucked into the crack of a cat-clawed L-Z boy recliner. Just as I’m trying to snatch a brown bag filled with tiny sugar-dusted donuts (my favorite) off a side table, Madonna suddenly walks in sporting a vinyl black body suit and looking like Cat Woman. She snaps up the donut bag, pulverizing it between her hands. I wince as her biceps bulge.

“Whaddya think you’re doing there, tubby?” she snarls.

“Was trying to pack on some more weight until you came into the picture.” I shoot her a nasty glance.

“You mean you don’t want to look like me?” Madonna stares incredulous.

“Are you crazy?” I yell. “It’s enough that I’ve gone into menopause and lost control of my body. Now I’m supposed to look good, too? Who can handle all that pressure?” I shake my head and stare down at my knees, lodged a few inches under my chin.

“But you’ve completely let yourself go,” says Madonna with pity mixed with disgust.

“True, but this lazy boy is loving my ass,” I pat the sides of the recliner. “Anyway, Madonna, there’s no escaping the inevitable. All the yoga in the world won’t change the fact that I am your future.” I point my thumbs at my chest for emphasis.

“Madonna doesn’t do Menopause,” she snorts defiantly and turns away.

Now I’m staring. “You’re actually scared, aren’t you? What do you think is going to happen? One word and ‘pop’ goes the sex icon?” I look closely at her. It’s obvious I’ve hit a nerve. She was breathing hard and fast.

Madonna turns back to me, seemingly unimpressed. “Fat. Freak.”

That’s when I woke up, amazed that even in my dream, I wasn’t so crazy about myself. The worst part was that I’d been having variations on these I-am-so-fat dreams ever since I went into menopause a couple of years ago. But, Madonna in one of my menopause dreams? That was a new twist. Could it be she symbolized some sexier, skinnier part of me that disappeared when my hormones had flown bye-bye? And now, here I was, rolling around lost in Donut Land, swimming through chocolate rivers, and climbing up ice cream mountains—desperately searching for something but what?

Answers, maybe? A little control? Funny thing about menopause—it’s been vilified, objectified, glorified, “medicalized,” turned into a giant controversy, and even made into a musical, but in the end, it is mostly denied—what I call the “pink elephant” in a woman’s life. I don’t know about you, but I was raised with the reigning expectation that all this aging stuff and even death were optional. It was just a matter of time before we found cool new pills, injections, and surgeries to make it all go away.

Like I said, I’ve been in menopause for a couple of years now and those treatments are nowhere on the horizon. Sure there are the exterior renovations—the boob jobs, the Botox, the face lifts, the tummy tucks, the everything else. But you still feel blah inside, like an old bean bag that has lost half its stuffing. You add new stuffing, and you think you look the same as you did in your twenties, but everyone can see you’re just fooling yourself.

At least, that had been my experience until that fateful morning, after which everything changed. By the time I’d downed my third cup of coffee, I realized I’d been stuck in the jaws of the recliner far too long. The time had finally come to face my Pink Elephant. Maybe, just maybe, if I put my head to the matter, I could figure out how to get some control back into my life. Figure out just what, if anything, could be done about this menopause thing.

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