THANKFUL FRIDAY

Today, I turn forty seven. I thought about this post last week and how I was going to say that this is the first month I’ve missed a period since I was maybe fourteen, but then my period started. It was almost two weeks late and included a little extra gore than usual. This had me doing an extensive search of medical journals to see how seriously I should take all this extra gore. It took an awful lot of digging to determine that it was probably due to a lack of ovulation. So, in honor of turning another year older, my ovaries are creeping into retirement and spitting out dust balls.

How fitting.

At first, I was a little sad because nothing really says “YOU’RE OLD” like an internal organ ceasing to function because it has reached the end of its life cycle. Then I got really annoyed at the level of research I had to do in order to determine that what was happening to my body is considered to be normal. Apparently, perimenopause and menopause are the real life Fight Club. The one thing I do know is that I have one to ten years of unpredictable menstrual cycles before it is really over. It is hard enough to get the appropriate attention for women’s health needs during their reproduction life stage, unless it is to restrict their reproductive rights. Forget any attention addressed to a woman’s needs when that stage ends. Remember when I said that thing about everything being a social construct? A woman’s aging body is so deeply rooted in a social construct of silence and invisibility that it will take multiple generations to rid this garden of the weeds.

But the revolution has begun. I’ve pre-ordered my copy of Karen Walrond’s new book, Radiant Rebellion (you should too) and I have a feeling it is going to be my handbook for fighting the war on growing older. It is not a war to fight aging, but a war against the negative ideas of aging.

Old, young, it’s all a perception and there are no rules. Recently, I was in the coffee line with a graduate student who was bemoaning adulthood and how difficult it was being a grown up. She is twenty five. Here was my tidbit of advice. I told her that there is no such thing as being a grown up. Sure, there are daily responsibilities that we didn’t have as children, but that doesn’t mean you now have to leave behind the joy and sense of play of childhood. I will even argue that you can maintain an aspect of being carefree. There are no rules other than the ones we place on ourselves. There may be outside voices with advice on how you should feel and act at a certain age, but they don’t know and really are probably only trying to sell you something. Take care of the basics like food, shelter, yearly health checks, and then do or behave any way you please.

I’m taking my own advice. Today is just a celebration of surviving another rotation around the sun. My aging body just makes me a target for the snake oil industry of anti-aging and as someone who tends to think of literal meanings of words, anti-aging sounds ridiculous and impossible. I will have none of that. Life cycle. Our lives are cyclic. My body is just cycling back to pre-teen age.