No Menopause For Me

Pass me the menopause, please.  I have to warm up.

Call me crazy, but I’m the only woman I know  that’s actually praying for Menopause to hit.  I was doing just fine until I hit the age of fifty.  When I went for my annual check-up, my doctor told me that the birth control pills I’d been on for almost thirty years were no longer necessary. She said that my chances of getting pregnant were slim.  My first question to her thirty-something self http://gty.im/463603248 was the following:

“Whose chances? Yours or mine?”

I was reluctant.  But then I thought about having one less chemical in my body and saving money every month on my pharmaceutical bill, and I played along.

I had been on one of those pills in which you only get your period once every three months, so suddenly I had to get used to having a period every month again.  The last time I lived with that, I was in my twenties.  It may have been thirty years ago, but the memory of frequent bathroom breaks, cramps, and irritability monthly came flooding back right along with other things that were flooding.

I kept thinking that it would be ok, I’d hit menopause soon, and this would all be over.  But so far, I’ve had no luck.

Then I went and did a really radical thing: I lost eighty pounds.  There are lots of great side effects related to the weight loss, but there’s one really, really bad one.  I’m freezing cold ALL THE TIME!  When I go out with my girlfriends, and they complain about hot flashes, my jealousy thermometer rises, but my body temperature doesn’t.  When I see beads of sweat on their foreheads, it takes all my emotional control not to get a glass to collect them and rub their warm wetness on my goose bumps. And when they complain about never knowing when they’re going to get their periods, I ask them why they have an aversion to surprises.  Please, wrap mine up with a bow and put it in my doggy bag.  I’d like to take it home.