Meno-WHAT?

Remember 5th grade health class...when we got the 'talk'.  It was the highlight of the year.  

I have no idea what they told the boys in 5th grade, but for the girls it was all about our body and the changes that were occurring...aka puberty.  

Menstruation.  "Yippee skippee!" 

Seems like we talked a lot about it.  Read books about it.  (My favorite: Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume.)  Most of our mother's talked to us.  Or older sisters.  Or our friends with older sisters.  We all plenty of information (albeit, most of it was likely inaccurate.)

We survived puberty and became grown women.  Many of us became mothers, ourselves.  And we talked to our daughters about puberty....

Then we turn 50... and something awful starts to happen.

Chin whiskers appear out of nowhere. 

Gray hairs stick up from our scalp like alien antennae.

We sweat at night.  Profusely.

We want to do bodily harm to the people we love.

We cry.  A lot.

We start battling our weight like it's our day job.

The ONLY benefit is that we stop having the periods that we couldn't wait to have when we were 11 years old.  And have you heard the latest "50 is the new 30" thing?  Ha!  Tell that to my aching joints.  Ugh.  

But no one spoke frankly about any of this to us as we were growing up.  I remember hearing older ladies whispering about 'the change' as if it were some dreaded punishment.  

This feels so unfair.  Men go gray and look 'distinguished.'  They expand around the middle and lovingly refer to their belly as a 'gas tank for a love machine.'  

We are not so lucky.

Today I was listening to a podcast about hormonal weight gain as I walked six miles in the heat, sweating buckets, cursing the fitness guru who claimed to understand what I was going through.  I seriously doubted her sincerity.  However, most of what she said rang true.  

The host talked about hormones and how they are changing. She talked about our nutrition and how that affects our hormones.  Then she said that women need to stop beating themselves up.

Whoa.  That was like a smack in the face (again, beating myself up!)  I'm so guilty of that.  I look in the mirror and focus on the things I don't like.  I'm reminded of a scene in the movie, "Titanic" when 'old Rose' is shown the items that were recovered from her stateroom aboard the ship.  She picks up the hand-held mirror and admires it, commenting that the mirror looks just like it did the last time she saw it, but upon turning it over and catching her reflection, she says, "mmmm...the reflection has changed a bit."

That's how I feel.  But last night, as I was recommitting to taking better care of myself, I stared at my own reflection, and I vowed to take care of her (me) and protect her - because I love her.  

Ladies!! We have to stop comparing our NOW selves to our 20-something selves.  We  need to give ourselves grace and love and understanding.   Can't we just treat ourselves like we treat our best girlfriend??  We would never talk to her the way we talk to ourselves...if we did, she wouldn't be our friend.  

I saw a post on Facebook that read, "Have you ever taken a photo of the sunset only to look at [the photo] and realize it was so much more beautiful in real life?... remember that when you're picking apart photos of yourself." BOOM 💥

Maybe no one told you what to expect as you face 'the change'.  Maybe you don't feel as beautiful as you once did, But know this - what we lack in youth, we make up for in confidence. 

And confidence is power.  

Confidence is beautiful.  

Go on.... be your confident self.  

“Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained in the way of righteousness.” Proverbs 16:31 (NIV) 

 

(originally posted Sept. 1, 2021 on My Gypsy Heart blog)