The 'Pause: Hotflashes, Wiggly Nights & The Crankies

Our Hen Hilda is bold, sassy and looking good after her raggedy Winter moult.

 

Teri and I are no Spring chickens...we are more like early Fall chickens in the midst of a raggedly moult.  In our late forties, we are both waste-deep in what I've decided to call "The Pause" (not sure why we need the word "men" in there; no offense to any men, but really?  This is a Female Adventure!)

There are days when we are both grateful we are so close in age and get to share in our transition. Truth be told, it is nice to have someone who gets it and with whom one can make comparisons and bitch without being accused of whining.  On the flip side, we have house that just may catch fire from the hotflashes of two cranky women and we are waging a full-fledge war with our sheets and blankets every night (window open? two windows? one blanket? two? who put all these pillows on here? flannel--hell no! I think you get the picture.)

The other day at work, in a room full of 20 and barely 30-somethings, I had a nice, toasty, head-on-fire, sweat-dripping hotflash and even though it only lasted a couple minutes, it was enough to make me feel a hundred years old and cranky as hell.  On my break, I texted Teri with: had a nice hotflash out of nowhere and know she was commiserating from her own red-faced work day on the other side of the county.

Now, before you offer us remedies and advice--we've read the books and articles, we're drinking our tea and using herbs and doing what we can.  We really feel quite healthy and it is more of a discomfort, rather than an overwhelming assault.  Besides, we don't want to hide or ignore it--we both see this time as a right of passage and while we're ready to move through and get to the other side, we don't want to pretend it's not happening altogether.

So while our periods are irregular now and have been distributed unfairly--I haven't had one since before Christmas, but Teri seems to be doubling up and taking my shifts; and we seldom sleep through the night with the uninterrupted sleep we used to know; and there are moments when we could leap over a store counter and shake bratty young clerks by the neck like a dog with a floppy toy; and while we haven't learned how to make a statement like "you're so hot, you're actually red-faced and sweat-drenched" sound sexy, we are still in this thing as a team.  We're rocking the 'Pause!