Denial is the Key to Surviving Menopause—Right?

There’s no question the Madonna dream was a desperately needed wake up call. It launched me on an adventure in understanding menopause—an adventure otherwise referred to as stalking the Pink Elephant. If the previous two years were any indication, I probably would have continued to do nothing, because, you see, I was in a deep freeze, a state of denial so intense that the very word, “menopause,” had been exorcised from my vocabulary.

I was incapable, for instance, of mustering the matter-of-factness that my friend, Jill, had about menopause. That would have been too sensible, too entirely unlike me.

“How’s it going?” I said, walking toward Jill in our cardio kick box class, a Sunday morning ritual. Jill had just turned 51. She was wrinkled from years of tanning in Italy (where else?) and was bemoaning how gi-normous she had become at a whopping 107 pounds instead of her usual 93 (Oh, those Sambuca’s just pack it on!). She was standing in front of a wall of mirrors, oblivious to everyone around her.

“Look at these!” she said, attacking her love handles with a fierce pinch. “Sickening.”

“At least they’ll always stay by your side,” I snickered. She glowered at me in the mirror. “You don’t look so good,” she added looking me up and down.

“Thanks for noticing,” I said flatly. “I don’t sleep anymore and would be happy to rip your head off it you think it’s too fat. My taste buds are officially monogamous. I only eat chocolate. And my idea of sex these days is wiping my ass. Other than that, I’m swell,” I said giving her a huge fake smile.

“Oh, I get it,” Jill said nodding mysteriously. “I went through all that.” She waved a finger in the general direction of my crotch. I looked between my legs and then back up at her.

“What are you talking about?” I demanded impatiently.

“Menopause, dummy,” Jill said loudly. A few people turned to look at her. I went red. “A nightmare,” she declared. “I tried everything. Finally my doctor shoved some estrogen-ring thing up there and I’m good to go. Except for this,” she looked down disdainfully at her expansive 24-inch waistline.

“You are so wrong on this Jill,” I said adamantly. “Look at me, I’ve got the body of a 21 year old!” I said with exaggerated gusto.

Jill looked at me and exploded in a guffaw. “And you think I’ve got head problems? Get real.”

Suddenly the music cranked on and Jill shuffled into her usual spot, jogging on the spot to warm up. I dropped to the back of the class, a big pout on my face. But as it was, it would take something far more shocking than Jill’s comment to snap me out of my menopause denial.

I saw my ass. And it was fat.

I had been watching a home movie one evening scrutinizing this flabby middle-aged woman as she slumped across a room with her back to the camera. I was about to say to my boyfriend, “who’s the fat ass?” when I realized in a flash of heart-exploding panic that the fat ass was me. My boyfriend tried to reassure me that the camera adds weight. “It doesn’t need to,” I screamed, as I ran to hide in the closet, under all those clothes that didn’t fit anymore.

Sometimes it takes a cold hard look to really get that you are not the 20-year old college dorm queen you used to be—all giggly, firm and fabulous. In an instant, I saw myself the way everyone else does—a sloppily aging woman skidding into flabby, fatigued obsolescence. Without even knowing it, I had been dismissed from the gene pool, left to watch from a frayed deck chair while all the other lithesome reproductive beings copulated with Darwinian intensity.

They mattered. They belonged. They would go on forever. They weren’t in menopause.

Instead of taking menopause calmly, perusing the scientific literature, and philosophically coming to an acceptance of biological fact, firmly centered in a secure sense of self, I shut down completely. Dropping into my favorite recliner, I flicked on the TV. And wouldn’t it be just my luck to catch a commercial for hormones showing a frantic menopausal woman wetting her finely tailored business suit in the middle of a critical board meeting, and then another with fury-filled eyes jumping out of bed to crank up the air conditioner full blast, not even her husband proving cold enough. These poor, melting menopausal women! How would they live without help from Premarin, now available in four dosage formulations, a little something for every hot flash?

I was glued to the TV, about ready to rip the stuffing out of the couch with my teeth, when I lost the remote under my ass. Squirming around to find it, I accidentally switched the channel to a Hip Hop video of gyrating estrogen-juiced teenage vixens. And that is exactly when I collapsed in a heap of tears half-screeching, “But I don’t want to take conjugated estrogens from horse pee—whatever the hell that is.”

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