Yeah. The title kind of depresses me too. I've been hearing more and more talk, open talk, about menopause. I'm reading Miranda July's book All Fours, a peri-menopausal woman on a soul-searching journey that takes her into an open marriage (honestly, it's depressing me). I just read my friend Catherine Newman's Sandwich, which is about a few days in the summer of a family on Cape Cod, narrated by a spit-take funny, menopausal woman (of my age, hmmmm, it's like I know her (which I do). Who am I kidding. I AM her. There's a new musical out called "Menopause: The Musical" and The New York Times has lately had a bunch of articles about menopause. I'm peri. I thought I was in menopause, as I wrote her previously. But I'm not. Yet. I have a few hot flashes, at times I have crazy night sweats and at times I don't. But Newman's protagonist Rocky, for a fictional character, is actually shedding some light for me on my own life for the past three years. She's rageful. She's moody. She is terrified of time passing. She loves her kids with a fierceness. She's a mess, all over the place, and decidedly truthful and vulnerable. I love her.
When Huck was weaning, I was diagnosed with Postpartum Depression. I'd become very depressed, moody, I was rageful at times. I never felt disconnected from my son, but I did feel a growing divide between me and my husband. That led into Covid, which made me feel dissociated from my friends, who had all pod'ed up together and I felt really distanced from any human. It was me and my family of three, inside our home and in our backyard, ordering groceries. Staying sheltered together. I got more and more depressed, more rageful and my whole system went into full on trigger, fight AND freeze, then fawn. I hurt the person I loved the most in the world. I lost my marriage. I mean, WE did, but I was the one with the nervous breakdown.
It's been four years since the Great Trauma Breakdown of June 2024. It's been two years since my divorce. All of that really dug a depression hole for me. I've fought for myself, though, and pulled my shit together. I'm sober and that I didn't take a drink through all this is testament to the power of the program I work to keep sober. I also started another recovery program that helped me understand my choices throughout my life and why I made them. I dug deep into therapy. I take antidepressants. I started walking. Throughout all of this, I wrote the poems that became my thesis. I did a graduate degree while barely holding it together. And I'm still struggling with a few things, just a nostalgic sadness, but I wake up, I do my work and I make gratitude lists. And for the most part, I'm a happy human.
But my mother, who was here last week, who is a nurse, said she thinks having a baby at 50, not only was a real risk (she was really worried about me the whole time and about my life, actually, during the birth and this is the first I'd heard about it), but she believes that the hormonal cocktail of the months of progesterone shots and estrogen pills, and then actually growing a human inside me, all the stress and physical labor of all of that....well, she says that my hormones were a mess. That it threw me into a pre menopause, it probably tore open the trauma. She thinks part of the depression, part of the rage has been partly menopausal hormones. I don't disagree. I just never thought of that.
Not that I don't think it was other things too. I'm four years past that, and I've changed. A lot. But it's nice to once in a while look back and forgive myself for things that, perhaps, were partly biological. I look forward to growing older. I really do. Worried a bit about money, sure. Worried about any kind of retirement fund (um...ha ha). Worried about wanting to be around for all of Huck's important moments (I plan to live till 90). Worried that I'll never find another partner...
But. Today I took Huck to the pool and laughed as we played "tickle monster". I watched him practice the crawl. He's getting good. He still speaks a bit like the toddler, which I LOVE. But while his legs are long and his torso is long and I can already see the 16 year old in his body, his face is pure four year old.
I just take it a day, a step, at a time. I'm curious what, who comes next. I'll warn them, don't worry.
Amy, I love your fierce honesty. Please don’t stop. Ever. 😊