Menopause came calling in November 2018. That is, I had my last period in October 2018 and following it, started the clock on my menopause year though I didn’t realize it until about three months on. I knew I’d missed by periods because I’d used an app, though I’d now recommend using a notebook especially if you live in the USA.

That information isn’t only yours in an app and it can be used against you.

Menopause only lasts a year, counted from the date of your last period, but you’re forgiven if you didn’t know that – advertising makes menopause seem like a forever kind of thing.

I didn’t have hideous problems with menopause and I didn’t get HRT (hormone replacement therapy). I skipped HRT because nothing about menopause is pathological. I don’t mind treating the symptoms, but treating menopause like a disease is a problem.

The main thing for me was hot flashes. I had them for about six months in the middle of that year, and they suck like you can’t believe – why yes, I did soak pyjamas and sheets, thanks for asking – but they did stop, and I’m grateful. Some people’s symptoms carry on for years and I give them mad respect. I was lucky, but then again, I didn’t have any real issues with menstruation, other than resenting the repetitive nature of the costs.

I started my period late compared to my friends – fourteen or fifteen – but that’s on brand for my family. We also tend not to suffer much. I’ve had cramps less than ten times in my life, and while I occasionally got stabbed by the joy that is mittelschmerz, that was in the nature of once a year so also not a source of big complaint.

I struggled with periodic (hah!) constipation but the blame for that gets split between Aunt Flo’s hormonal variations and my eating disorder. Still, that occasional sensation of a knife being driven into your intestines via the colon was disconcerting. I don’t miss that.

I’d like to take a moment to state that neither menstruation nor menopause are pathologies, and we need to be a lot more open about how uteruses, vaginas, and hormone cycles work.

I didn’t have any negative associations with menstruation. I desperately hated the film they made us watch in grade four with our moms, and I hated the annual question from mine about the unused package in my closet. But once we were a go, my cycle was problem free.

I was the poster child for menstruation. I think my uterus read the books. My cycle was twenty-eight days long, my period lasted six for six days, and I never suffered from excessive flow or cramping, not even once it started back up six months after giving birth.

Pregnancy was my reproductive system’s revenge and proof that smugness is rarely a good idea. I vomited for the whole ten months. Involuntarily – I was pretty good at keeping my eating disorder locked up while I gestated – and so frequently, I required meds.

But we’re reproductively capable for about forty years, so ten months of personal distress doesn’t seem so bad. And that’s not even getting into disorders like PCOS and endometriosis or damage caused to the reproductive cycle by FGM.

Menopause for me was also mostly a breeze. Not much changed for me once my monthly menarche stopped (aside from the previously mentioned hot flash half-year).

I missed my period though. That surprised me since I’d long passed the age of considering pregnancy and babies again. But losing that connection with life hurt a little. I found I missed the awareness of life cycling.

My sleep took a bit of a hit, but my sleep is historically lousy. Happiness is Trazodone.

I was pretty smug about how well I was doing with menopause, especially when I compared myself to a couple of whiny friends, but as we well know, karma hates smug self-entitlement about things that aren’t in your control. I mean, it’s not like we “do” menopause. It happens without our conscious input, so my metaphoric back-slapping was misplaced.

And premature. It turns out one has more than hot flashes to weather.

Has anyone talked to you about menopause skin? Not your face – by the time your monthly cycle hits stop, your face has lost most of its subcutaneous fat and most of us are aware, what with seeing our faces looking back at us from the mirror. Menopause is when you start thinking seriously about fillers and commit to that retinol routine with intent.

This is all well and good, and The Inkey List has a nice, affordable retinol, but what about the skin that lives everywhere else? It’s starting to give up the ghost and I’m not amused. I thought I was done with the changes. Discoveries since spring suggest I was mistaken. Apparently, aging isn’t one-and-done.

I did not give my skin permission to lose elasticity. I did not give my subcutaneous fat permission to build love handles on my hips and a layer of fat under my belly button. An increase in imperfections just as I’m learning to embrace zen and tolerate the realities of life is proof that Mother Nature is all about snark.

Did she not get the memo about me being in recovery?

Though the changes haven’t triggered my eating disorder beyond vague grumpiness and muted self-hatred, confirmation that my recovery is still on track, aging skin and pockets of fat notwithstanding. I’m distressed over my imperfections, but the distress is of the vague and normal type. I’m less about body hatred and violent dieting, and more about firming skin creams and bath bombs these days.

I know the promises are crap, but I want to believe. I miss my collagen and baby-fat-filled cheeks.

On the bright side, I wore sunscreen.

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