The nature of change.

I dislike the (mostly) gradual nature of change when it comes to the human biological condition. I didn’t enjoy the slow crawl into menstruation, nor the year of sore breast buds back in the day. And I considered those ten months of pregnancy borderline assault, especially the last few weeks.

I might have felt differently if there’d been less illness.

I’m not a fan of the “exciting” discoveries that slowly emerge as the stretch from my last menarche extends. It will be six years in October, though it feels both less and longer, and new things keep cropping up. ^[i]

You’d think I’d be more enthusiastic about slow change, considering that glacial crawl is my preferred method for entering bodies of water, but this is different. With aging, there’s no sense of sweet relief after the first shock of cool.

Aside from wisdom, much about aging is less than desirable. Though it still beats the alternative.

Can we just get it done, so we can see the kind of damage we’re looking at? I’d like to ballpark the time and money I should probably set aside for improvements and tweaks.

Menopausal changes.

Some of the menopausal changes are apparent early on. The weird and oddly located hair growths start before the periods stop, with it thinning from where you want it, and growing where you don’t. You start looking at volumizing shampoos long before you get that last visit from Aunt Flo.

Conversations with girlfriends perimenopausal girlfriends often centred around those steel-like follicular eruptions that emerge from the chin and nose in the forties. Because who doesn’t love random, wiry facial hairs you usually only discover at the end of the day?

The brain fog of menopause is also annoying. I’m reminded of the milk/mommy brain from that first infant year. But I don’t currently have an infant. Just the same inability to remember why I’ve walked into a room. Even if it’s the bathroom.

Perhaps I want skin cream.

The skin you’re in.

Our skin is an amazing organ. It improves our appearance dramatically. If you don’t believe me, watch Beneath the Planet of the Apes. They have skin-free humans roaming about – it’s an unfortunate fashion choice.

Skin has qualities that extend beyond aesthetics, of course. It’s the first line of defense against a hostile world. Our skin keeps a variety of things at bay – from bacteria and viruses to light rays and radiation, all trying to cause us harm.

It helps us produce necessary vitamins. It keeps moisture loss down. And it tells us much about our environment – our skin is the largest sensory organ we have.

Skin starts to change during perimenopause, that period leading up to the ending of menstruation, and the difference and changes continue once you realize you’ve been gifted with a visit from the menopause fairy and monthly flows are no more.

Though I missed my monthlies for a while. I might have had different feelings if I’d had problematic periods, but I had an easy time there. The realization of its permanent absence was a bit of a wrench. The loss of that cyclic connection to the universe hurt – and with menstruating, my body did jump straight into the pool. I stopped that October, and never started again.

The ease of the transition perhaps made me a tad arrogant about the consequences of “the change.” Sure, I complained about the occasional chin hair, but they were very occasional; only the eyebrow loss was a real blow, corrected now with Minoxidil.

And then came this summer.

Menopause and tank tops.

I remember asking my mother why she was wearing sleeved tops in the summer heat. It started in her late fifties. The answer was always something about her arms, about not liking the way they looked.

I’m sure I said something positive and uplifting about loving your body and ignoring the haters, advice that not only ignored the truth of what menopausal levels of collagen do to one’s skin but discounted her feelings and experiences.

I try to do better these days.

Menopause skin is not your best skin ever. It’s not as tensile or elastic as it used to be. It sags. It gets spotty as well, with both acne and brown marks. It’s not the skin of your youth – or even your forties. For some of us, pores also get very apparent.

Flashbacks to the witch hazel pads of my youth.

Our skin elasticity depends mostly on our collagen levels. Dehydration can make things worse, but collagen is the star of the show. But I guess proteins get tired because once menopause and midlife hit, collagen starts phoning it in.

Collagen accounts for about a third of our body’s protein, and women will lose up to thirty percent of it – and thus a great deal of the elasticity of youth that some people (me) took for granted – in the first few years of menopause. That’s a big number.

The rate of loss tapers off after the first five years to a more “reasonable” two to five percent loss of the remaining balance every year. It’s never going to spring back again. Although I notice I’m more gentle with my skin these days.

There are consequences to decreasing collagen beyond the cosmetic. There are also health considerations. Wounds heal more slowly. You’ll struggle to fight off skin infections. Burns are very bad news. Repairing injury to the skin gets hard – it’s so fragile and friable.

I remember my grandmother slicing her leg open by bumping into the car door. The skin simply ripped apart. And there is no stitching, no glue. You tape it up with tape that you hope doesn’t cause further problems and cross your fingers.

It took months to heal.

The drop in collagen levels is a result of the lower levels of estrogen that arrive with menopause. Estrogen regulates your menstrual cycle, but it also helps the body build collagen. Less of one, less of the other. So very much of life is about math.

Some people choose hormone replacement therapy as they navigate menopause. There are various opinions and results, but the benefits seem to include an improvement in collagen levels, skin thickness, and skin elasticity. The skin improvements make sense considering that the outer layer of the skin, the dermis, is approximately seventy-five percent collagen.

Jowls, lines, and sagging.

I’ve noticed what I can only rudely describe as jowls starting to appear on the sides of my jaw over this past year, and I’m not amused. Sure, they’re small now, but this is a harbinger of things to come. Assuming I don’t get plastic surgery, and I likely won’t because I don’t like pain, if I live long enough, I’ll start to resemble a beagle.

This is also the year that the marionette lines set in. Along with this being the year that I learned what marionette lines are. Thanks to TikTok for that.

Which brings me back to t-shirts, tank tops, and triceps. Specifically, my triceps. I’ve always liked them. They help me move my arms around, and that’s useful, plus, I’ve always had rather slender-yet-cut arms. I’ve been quite proud/vain about them.

Imagine my shock and horror when I realized my triceps were waving back from the mirror as I brushed my hair. I gave no one permission, and yet suddenly, here I am with late-arrival menopause effects. It seems rude, not to mention unfair.

I have a retroactive understanding of my mother’s arms concerns.

Acceptance and arm exercises.

I’ve started focusing on my arms during my exercise routines rather than sticking with the general body approach I preferred in my forties. I’m doing dips off the coffee table – some exercise, some sour cream and onion – lots of pushups, kickbacks, and arm curls when I remember.

I’ve also been hunting for a magic skin cream. Something that will firm and soften my skin so that it resembles the skin of my thirties – I’d pick the skin of my twenties, but that seems greedy. There are two problems, however.

The first is that I’m broke and cheap. I suppose that’s technically two problems, but they run along the same money line. I’m not paying big money for skin creams that promise to make my arms firmer. And the reason I’m tapping out at ten dollars (twenty if it’s a family-size bottle) is problem number two.

I’m aware that there’s not much of a topical nature that will do anything beyond providing extremely temporary results. Most firming creams use some form of diuretic to tighten the skin up – caffeine is a popular choice. The improvements are temporary. Which then means there’s no real reason to switch from the one I use now. Consistency might have an impact, however.

Any improvements to one’s collagen production will come from your diet, and from changes to your diet, and they’ll be subtle, and they’ll take time. So don’t buy expensive pills and powders.  

There’s no miracle “cure” for aging because it’s not a disease. Mindset is perhaps part of the problem. Venerating such a small fraction of our life as ideal is probably a mistake.

Further reading.

• Menopause
• Hormone Therapy: Benefits and Risks
• Perimenopause

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[i] October is also the anniversary of my stopping purging. October 31, 2019, was the last. It’s totally unrelated, but it feels like a kind of symmetry.

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