The dead of night is when I’m at my hottest
- Melissa Herrera: Not Waiting for Friday
- March 24, 2024
- 1410
There’s nothing I love better than a room with morning light spilling through it, a hot cup of coffee and my own hard-earned thoughts. My mornings aren’t as early as they used to be. The cocoon of this house has made that so, and maybe we needed to rest and heal from the all that’s happened. This journey has been good and hard and necessary.
Moving is exciting, but it’s also trauma. It stains you in a way you’re not prepared for — so much to handle, redo, rework. Lots of people only want to buy a house that’s move-in ready, but that could never be us.
We don’t do everything the way most folks would say is the normal way. We do it inch by inch in our own way, and it satisfies me, us. I’m just now putting fluffy rugs down in the bathroom after finishing the details. Took forever. But it wasn’t going anywhere. We had time.
Last week I opened up my computer to read a test result from my yearly mammogram/gyno exam. I no longer have any eggs in my ovaries, and I cried for an hour — hot, heavy tears. I don’t need those eggs, but for some reason, it felt like I had hit a milestone no one ever talks about.
I’m sure you don’t want to read about menopause, but then again no one does. It’s the “hidden” part of life for every person born with ovaries. We will read articles about high blood pressure or heart disease, but at the first mention of menopause, we run for the hills.
Let’s stop that. Every woman reading this knows it’s coming, is going through it or is on the other side of it. Just like every partner should know the ins and outs of a woman’s monthly cycle, they also should know the ins and outs of menopause. The hard part is most of us going through it haven’t been taught anything about it.
“You might have some hot flashes.”
And sure, but also add to that myriad symptoms and emotions no one tells us about.
I haven’t been sleeping great. I’m hot, then I’m cold, then it’s time to get up and go to the bathroom. I’m learning to lean in to this new phase of my life, one where society ponders if we’re valuable as women — the phase where we mostly get tossed to the side if we aren’t ripe from youth’s blush. In the dead of night after throwing the covers aside 100 times, I don’t want to hear anything about youth’s blush — there’s nothing hotter than a cultivated woman in full bloom. She could teach you a lot.
My mom died of ovarian cancer. She was healthy and vibrant until she wasn’t. It came on fast and took her even faster. She never talked about menopause and how it made her feel. I wonder now if she suffered in silence because it was something “you didn’t talk about.”
I wish we had talked about it, Mom. I am talking to my girls about everything I feel.
As women we shouldn’t have to worry that we’re valuable people simply because we no longer have eggs in the basket (I really dislike this phrase). I reject that notion as I wade through post-menopause. I know I’m not alone.
I am vibrant.
I can be tired.
I am beautiful.
I have ideas.
I still have worth.
Hear me.
This is my rally call for post-menopausal women. We should never stay silent because it makes others uncomfortable. We’re sitting at your table ready to talk.
Melissa Herrera is a published author and opinion columnist. She is a curator of vintage mugs and all things spooky, and her book, “TOÑO LIVES,” can be found at www.tinyurl.com/Tonolives. For inquiries, to purchase her book or anything else on your mind, email her at junkbabe68@gmail.com or find her in the thrift aisles.