ORIGINALLY WRITTEN in 2019

Warning: this post will be a tad graphic, snarky and disorganized – like my thoughts these days. Maybe just imagine me pacing back and forth and maniacally yelling this whole thing at you.

Also, let’s start with this: a definition of perimenopause. If menopause is the time of a woman’s life when she has gone without her period for one full year, then perimenopause is the years-long hell-on-earth that peri/pre-cedes it.

So, I’m 49. For about a little while now, my body has been…ummm…changing. Doing its own thing, shall we say?

For about thirty years, I kinda had the gist. It was on a monthly routine, and though, for about a week every month, it was a pain in the — (literally and figuratively), it was predictable.

But not so much anymore.

Now, my periods stay away for months on end. And then they show up as if my entire uterus is disintegrating. This past summer, I had my period FIVE times in SEVEN weeks, ohmylands. I’m like the Benjamin Button of menopause.

All the while, hot flashes have descended upon me. Praise Baby Jesus, I’ve only had two slight episodes during the day in public, both of which were nbd.

No, mine set up camp at night. Again, with zero predictability.

I can go a whopping TWO NIGHTS in a row without having to wake up even once (bless up). But then there’ll be nights when I’m changing my jammies two, three, FOUR times. (I now just leave some stacked up in the bathroom for easy access.)

Oh, and then there are my dreams! OML. Vivid. Some scary. All action packed. With lots of stressful moments or people from my past sliding in there like I just talked to them yesterday.

So, needless to say, I’m exhausted. Like all the time.

And then there are my moods. Oh my moods.

I told my husband that I was sorry that he didn’t know what version of me he was going to get from hour to hour.

I also told my husband that I’m a little bit mad, a little bit sad, a little bit tired, and a little bit anxious all the time. I think I was using “a little bit” so as not to concern him. Because in reality, if I could scream, throw things, cry, sleep and try to control all the people in my life in one fell swoop, I’d be a happy girl. (Well, not happy. Haven’t seen downright happy in “a little bit”.) Like, I’m kinda screaming in my head right now. Not even sure about what. But there’s definitely screaming going on in there.

I’m not going to bother giving you a list of tips and products I’m trying (though trust me, if it can be ingested or slathered on me and it promises to help with my symptoms, I’m all over it!).

But I’m not going to tell you what to do to handle your symptoms because a) I’m not a doctor, and b) I’m barely handling mine.

So this post is all about one thing: me saying, I get it, I hear you, I’m right there with you, peri-girls. And apparently, in about a decade, we should feel much, much better.

UPDATE: I’m now 51 and I’m not experiencing most of what I was experiencing when I wrote this post and I’m on, what I believe to be, the tail-end of peri and heading into menopause. Girls, there is a light at the end of this tunnel, I promise.