Category — Life Changes & Stages

So many mental manifestations of menopause have plagued me and the goddesses at one time or another. Inability to concentrate, butterfly mind (winging from thing to thing without alighting long on any one), jellyfish brain, ADD (attention deficit disorder), forgetfulness, dyslexia, and more have at times dwarfed the physical and emotional symptoms. Yuck.

The weirdest is when you have several of these in the course of a single day. If my brain is not going to work, I at least would like it to malfunction in the same way for a time. So I can figure out how to deal with it.

And now, a new mental effect is afflicting me. I’m going to call it Menopause Demotivation Syndrome. After all, we seem to name everything these days to make it sound important at best and necessitating treatment at worst.

Living in two places requires that my husband and I essentially move twice a year. Which means making reservations, packing, organizing house sitters and repair personnel, etc. I’m not complaining – life is good, if slightly disorienting sometimes.

I’ve always been a self starter. I get stuff done. Or maybe I should say “I got things done.” These days? Not so much. Oh, I eventually get things done, but I feel my drive to do even those high priority items slipping into neutral.

Which is why, a week out from our departure from Hawaii to the mainland, I am still trying to get into gear. First gear would be okay, although with each day that passes, a higher gear will be needed.

Panic mode used to be a motivator. That helped. I can’t find that mode anymore.  Or the mode where I put my head down and just do one task after another, forcing the motivation. Nor can I access the mode where I delight in organizing, packing, and planning.

In fact, it is taking every last shred of discipline I have just to write my blog entry for this week. I fear that I will exhaust my infinitesimal supply of get-up-and-go just doing this. I’m not sure this is hormonal, although it could be (by the way, goddesses, the decrease HRT project is going swimmingly, although I’m not sorry to leave Hawaii for the summer as it is heating up a bit.)

Perhaps this demotivation is naturally occurring phenomenon due to aging? What do you think? Am I the only one? And do you have any tips for kicking into gear? Because I seriously need to get packing.

Right now though, I think I’ll have a cup of espresso……..Better make it a double!

Wave Mo`omomi at Dawn ©lynette sheppard 2010

Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville dragged me from the depths of slumber. “Why is there music at five am?” I wondered groggily. Finally realizing that I was hearing a ringtone, I fumbled for my cell phone on the bedside table.

“Big earthquake in Chile,” my husband blurted in my ear. “Sue Nonny.”

“Sue who?” I asked, scanning my mental files to figure out who we knew traveling to or living in Chile.

“Tsunami!” my husband repeated. “Heading to Hawai`i. Get to high ground.”

Lei Venus and I were attending E Pili Kakou, an annual hula conference on our neighbor island of Kaua`i. We look forward to attending nearly every year for girlfriend time, rekindling our joy in the dance, and new adventures.

This year, Mom Nature saw to it that the emphasis was on adventure with a capital A.

A note had been slipped under our door by the Kaua`i Beach Hotel management. Basically, it instructed us to grab our essentials only and be ready to evacuate if the Civil Defense sirens sounded at 6:00 am. We hurriedly dressed, slam dunked a couple cups of coffee and grabbed our purses, cell phones, and computers.

The sirens blared eerily and we headed to the lobby. We were immediately squired to buses and shuttled several miles away to the Kukui Grove Mall.

Much of the mall was closed and deserted. We headed to the courtyard where a stage was setup for entertainment throughout the year. Our wonderful hotel had sent scads of homemade pastries and a cooler full of drinks for us. (Mahalo Maydene, and all the fabulous crew. Mahalo to Roberts Hawai`i also.)

And then the show began. Blaine Kamalani Kia, president of Ka Laua`e Foundation that created and puts on E Pili Kakou in Kaua`i, Sacramento, CA, Japan, Tahiti, and Vancouver, Canada corralled musicians and hula dancers to share with all the evacuees what is meant by “aloha”.

We sang, danced, prayed, and gave thanks as the day progressed. At around 230pm, the all clear was given and our newfound ohana (family) joined hands in a large circle to sing “Hawai`i Aloha”. It was what we in the islands call a “chicken skin” experience. Kumu Kia invited everyone to join us at the hotel that evening for our performances.

The weekend was extended through the next day with workshops since we’d missed our classes the previous day. But we didn’t miss our lessons. Not at all.

The real lesson of hula, indeed that of all Hawai`ian culture is “aloha”. Aloha – sharing with humility, compassion, modesty, and reverence all that you have to offer with family, friends, and strangers. Aloha – an outpouring of love and grace with no expectation of anything in return. Aloha – a way of life Hawai`i can (and does) offer the world. Aloha, a vision for our present and future that we Menopause Goddesses and elders can model.

Lei and I are home now on Moloka`i. We are grateful to have missed the devastating waves of the tsunami. We are saddened that our ohana in Chile are suffering from the destruction of the quake. And we are reminded to be our own waves – waves of Change. Not tsunamis creating havoc and laying waste, but gentle persistent waves. Waves of kindness and connection. Waves of peace and sharing. Waves of aloha. We can live that promise anywhere.

All last week I was suffering from PCSD. That’s Pre Colonoscopy Stress Disorder.

It’s recommended that at age 50 all of us get a colonoscopy, to screen for colon cancer. In the abstract, it seems like a no brainer. Get checked out and either get a clean bill of health or catch disease early so it can be treated. End of story.

But when that fifth decade arrives, the abstract becomes concrete. That initial screening exam seems less like a great idea and more like a trip to Procrasti-Nation is needed. I thought about it when I turned 50, considered it a bit more seriously at age 51, blew it off at age 52, felt a little guilty at 53, and finally, at age 54, scheduled the damn thing.

Essentially, there were two parts of this procedure I wasn’t looking forward to. And no. One of them was not the tube shoved miles up my nether zones. Oddly enough, that didn’t bother me too much. Especially knowing I wouldn’t be awake for the event.

What bothered me was the prep and the anesthesia. First, I worried about the prep. To prepare for the flexible tube-snake to see and photograph your colon, you are required to drink a gallon of thick, salty sludge with the ridiculously inappropriate name of GoLytely. Because you don’t. Go Lytely. No, you go as hard as it is possible to go without actually turning your large intestine inside out and dragging it over your body like a chrysalis. I kid you not.

You drink the first half gallon starting at 4:00 pm the day prior to the exam – downing 8 ounces every 10 minutes. Then you pull up stakes and live in the bathroom for the next five hours.
Exhausted, you crawl to bed praying that Mom Nature won’t call you any more that night. You have no more left to give.

At 6:00 am, after flinging your abusive alarm across the room, you start the second half gallon, 8 oz every 10 minutes, and again take up residence in the bathroom.

The prep was as bad as I hoped it wouldn’t be. However, I was grateful that I didn’t have to be at the hospital until 11:00 am for obvious reasons.

Once in the special procedures room, a nurse started my IV, dressed me in a fetching open back frock, and hooked me up to monitors. No problem. Now all I had to do was wait. And fret. About the anesthesia.

Now the anesthesia for a colonoscopy is really called conscious sedation. Which means while you have no awareness or memory of the procedure (many mahalos for that), you are actually responsive and in what is called a twilight sleep. It’s short acting and you wake and leave shortly after the procedure.

Unfortunately, I am a bit of a control freak, so even a nice “twilight sleep” sounds like a nightmare to me. However, the alternative of being awake and aware of the tube-snake seemed much worse, so I was down for the full meal deal.

As they rolled me into the procedure room, I noticed my heart rate and blood pressure climbing. It’ll do that when you fret. A needle went into my IV and the next thing I knew was I was getting dressed, joking with the doctor and nurses, and in a very mellow mood. Especially after getting the clean bill of health. Didn’t remember a thing. Went home and let Dewitt wait on me.

So was it worth it? You bet! Wasted a lot of time worrying and fretting, though.

If you have yet to have your first colonoscopy, I have just two other bits of info that might help. First, make sure you have a warm robe and/or a space heater in the bathroom when you drink the prep. My girlfriend, Gena, told me that I’d feel chilled when I drank the GoLytely (because it’s refrigerated and diet is only clear liquids from breakfast on, etc.) Keeping warm definitely ups the comfort factor. (I was cold and I live in the tropics!)

Also, eat yogurt for a few days after the procedure. I was at my chiropractor’s office a couple days after my procedure and mentioned to him that it was really easy, but that I was feeling kind of crappy (no pun intended) in my lower intestinal area. “Are you eating yogurt?” he asked. Dumbstruck, I looked at him. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I had just cleaned out every single cell of normal bacteria out of my colon. Of course I needed some help getting back to normal. Duh!

Sure enough, a couple servings of yogurt and I was feeling perky again. So don’t wait, goddesses. Put on those big girl panties and schedule your colonoscopy. It’s one of those things that is so much easier in hindsight (pun intended) that you wonder why you waited so long to do it.

(For the best ever colonoscopy story, read Dave Barry’s essay: A journey into my colon — and yours.)

My good friend and sister Menopause Goddess, Saskia, sent me this wonderful email that is currently circulating the web. It’s a must-read and worth reading again if you have seen it.

“Recently, in a large city in France, a poster featuring a young, thin and tan woman appeared in the window of a gym. 

It said, “This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?”

A middle-aged woman, whose physical characteristics did not match those of the woman on the poster, responded publicly to the question posed by the gym.

 To Whom It May Concern,

Whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, sea lions, curious humans. They have an active sex life, get pregnant and have adorable baby whales. They have a wonderful time with dolphins stuffing themselves with shrimp. They play and swim in the seas, seeing wonderful places like Patagonia, the Bering Sea and the coral reefs of Polynesia. Whales are wonderful singers and have even recorded CDs. They are incredible creatures and virtually have no predators other than humans. They are loved, protected and admired by almost everyone in the world.

Mermaids don’t exist. If they did exist, they would be lining up outside the offices of Argentinean psychoanalysts due to identity crisis. Fish or human? They don’t have a sex life because they kill men who get close to them, not to mention how could they have sex? Just look at them … where is IT? Therefore, they don’t have kids either. Not to mention, who wants to get close to a girl who smells like a fish store?
The choice is perfectly clear to me: I want to be a whale.

P.S. We are in an age when media puts into our heads the idea that only skinny people are beautiful, but I prefer to enjoy an ice cream with my kids, a good dinner with a man who makes me shiver, and a piece of chocolate with my friends. 

With time, we gain weight  because we accumulate so much information and wisdom in our heads that when there is no more room, it distributes out to the rest of our bodies. So we aren’t heavy, we are enormously cultured, educated and happy. Beginning today, when I look at my butt in the mirror I will think, ¨Good grief, look how smart I am!”

Let me just say for the record, I’m proud to be a whale. Lady Leviathan – that’s my new self image and I’m feelin’ good about it! Now if I could just learn to sing…

My husband injured his knee over New Year’s and has literally been unable to walk. Which means that I now have to do his chores as well as my own, while waiting on him. Sort of caregiving lite, you might say.

Initially, Dewitt was certain that he’d need an MRI and surgery as it wasn’t getting better. Then his brother mentioned that he’d had similar injuries and was on crutches for a time but it eventually healed on its own.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “That could be true. Remember when I sprained my ankle so badly and was on crutches for a few weeks, then hobbling for a while after, but it healed on its own, too.”
“No,”he said. “I don’t remember that at all.”

I stared at him, astonished. How could he not recollect an event that is lodged so firmly in my memory. After all, I was unable to walk for a good, long while.

And then I realized why he had zero recall. This wasn’t a case of elder forgetfulness nor memory lapse. He didn’t remember the event because his life didn’t change. At all. Except for a small detour to the Urgent Care Center, nothing changed for him. I still made dinner, did the shopping, even went to my job as a nurse educator, slowly executing the stairs with my crutches. Luckily I had injured my left leg, so I could still drive.

Why? Why do we women carry on as if nothing has happened when we are ill or afflicted with an injury? All those meals fixed, laundry and errands done, and work done while incubating a fever of 101+, horrific cramps, the stomach flu leads to one question? Are we freaking nuts!?! Or do we have a heretofore undiscovered martyr gene embedded in our feminine DNA?

We goddesses are well equipped for caretaking and ill equipped for the necessary job of caring for ourselves. And at this stage of life, we are looking at some long term caretaking events in our near future (if we haven’t already immersed ourselves in them.)

How will we cope? With caring for aging parents, with unforeseen injury and illness to our significant others? What balancing acts might we find ourselves performing?

Caregiving turned out to be the uber topic this year at our annual Venus gathering. Ironically, two of our very own Menopause Goddesses were unable to make the meeting at the last minute due to caretaking emergencies. Perhaps we should have talked about it last year!

Many hours of discussion and sharing later, we uncovered the main secret to artful caregiving (where you care for yourself as well as those who are in need of your care). It is this: Ask for help. This will save your bacon. Over and over again. And likely the bacon of the one(s) under your care.

People want to help. And we need to let them. We need to ask for their assistance and then accept it with gratitude and grace.
Even those under our care can help, in ways we hadn’t considered. We can ask them too. Everybody gives. Everybody receives. Everybody cares.

We still don’t know the prognosis for Dewitt’s knee. We have to fly to Honolulu on Friday to see a specialist and maybe he’ll have to have that MRI. We’ll know more then.

In the meantime, this evening I called out “Hey gimpy boy, get in here and do these dishes. You only have to stand for that.”
“Be happy to, you only have to ask me,” he grinned as he hobbled the few steps to the kitchen.

New Year’s resolutions. They can be a setup for judgment, stress, and failure. While the “clean slate” of January 1 can certainly inspire us to set goals and intentions, it can also overburden us with expectation.

Before embarking on a future view for 2010, take some time to review and jot down what you accomplished in 2009. Accomplishments need not be lists of tasks completed, milestones reached, or jobs finished. (Although certainly those qualify.)

Achievements might be just as easily be shifts in attitude, changes in self knowledge, feelings of connection, or new worldviews All too often we don’t take the time to savor or appreciate what we have done, seen, or felt over the past 365 days. We don’t allow for the “Ta Da” before we rush on to the next “To Do”.

So for the next few days, Menopause Goddesses, let’s compile a list of all we have done and experienced during 2009. In this eye-of-the-storm lull between Christmas frenzy and New Year’s celebrating, let’s ruminate on the past. Give yourself a great, glorious pat on the back for all that you have done and been this year.

We can work on our walloping To Do list later. For now, shout “Ta Da” out loud and celebrate all you’ve accomplished for the last twelve months.

The sun is shining brightly and we are ready for Christmas. I’ve taken my own advice and am relaxing, enjoying the season. Tonight we will go down to Teri’s store, Kalele Bookstore and Divine Expressions to hear the kupuna (Hawaiian elders) sing Christmas carols. You might remember Teri from the blog entry spotlighting her last year: “Daring To Dance: A Menopause Goddess Lives Her Dream”.

I’ve jettisoned the Christmas cards in favor of a photo collage that can be emailed. (And I am not completely sure that I’ll get that done. Nor am I worried about it. February 14 is soon enough for an update.)

I’ve decorated the house with those stuffed Santa, angel, and moosie dolls and hung some stockings.  It took all of about 15 minutes. (See photo with our cat Frankie snuggled up with the Christmas finery.)

I’m not baking Christmas cookies. I may not eat any holiday sweets unless someone makes me eat them. (And of course, my Menopause Goddess friends know enough to twist my arm and then forcefeed me. Thank you all in advance.)

I did manage to decorate a tree this year, possibly the world’s tiniest tree. No lights to untangle, no tinsel, and it can be used again next year. It looks so nice on my computer keyboard. Very festive. (see photo.)

The point of all this holiday non-doing is that an outing to hear Christmas carols at Teri’s store is not a burden or an obligation that I have to squeeze in among all my other commitments and holiday prep. It’s a pure joy. My calendar is gloriously unstuffed. No menopausal meltdowns or mania have visited me this season.
I have time to appreciate the year’s end, family, cats, friends, and fun. Mele Kalikimaka, as we say here in Hawai`i, to all goddesses and their families.

Menopause and Christmas can combine to produce exponential amounts of stress. In our constant desire for peace, harmony, and joy, Theresa-Venus and I have a few ideas for more ease and less pressure this holiday season.

1.  Give the best Christmas gift ever to your girlfriends:  no gift. Theresa-Venus and I did this last year and liked it so much we are doing it again. Let’s face it. Most of us at this stage of life feel that we already have too much stuff. The pressure to buy the perfect gift, then wrap it and deliver it is more than we need and can precipitate menopause meltdown.

2.  Jettison the Christmas card or letter.  Most of us are deluged by either chatty, newsy (read long) holiday letters or a lovely card containing nothing but a signature. Some cards have only a printed signature, which may have you wondering “What’s the point?” If you wish to send a yearly update to friends and family, wait until February 14. Frankly, most of us will appreciate it so much more and it won’t get lost in the flood of holiday greetings.

3. Do not bake cookies. With our metabolic rate slowing down and the sedentary days of winter just beginning, we don’t need the sweets or the guilt that comes with eating them. Buy those packages of little carrots shaped like tubes for snacks. Mmmmmm yummy. If you must eat cookies, know that someone else will be giving you some anyway. Do not bake any. And definitely NO cookie exchanges!

4.  Do not wrap gifts. Purchase Christmas gift bags or boxes from your favorite big box or warehouse store. Place each gift in a bag and voila, all the gifts will be wrapped. You will have reclaimed several hours and taken nearly all the stress out of gifting.

5.  Decorate sparingly. Try getting a smaller tree and let the grandkids decorate it. No grandkids yet?  Consider no tree unless you feel that it isn’t Christmas without it.

Put less (or no) lights outside. Strategically placed Santa, Reindeer, and Angel cloth dolls can make your home festive with very little work or time expenditure. You can find these at your local craft fair, drugstore or even grocery store.

Unless you are preparing for a shoot for Architectural Digest or House Beautiful, a frenzy of decorating just isn’t worth it.

6.  Have a Christmas potluck. Don’t spend all day cooking as if you were creating a second Thanksgiving. Go for a walk, have a snowball fight,  play with the kids instead. Read a book aloud as a family or sing carols together.

Your friends and family will not miss any of the usual Christmas trappings and if they do? They’ll soon find that they enjoy being in the company of a relaxed, pleasant, unstressed you much more than all gifts, cookies, and decorations in which you can bury yourself.

There’s a saying most of us have heard. “This moment is a gift, that’s why they call it the present.” Sure, it’s a little corny, but it really is true. Happy holidays.

My husband once remarked that it was a wonder that more couples don’t get divorced during the  Big M transition. And certainly it’s true that if we who are undergoing this forced journey don’t understand much of what’s occurring, our mates and loved ones are left completely befuddled.

The combination of physical changes and emotional changes can put a strain on the most loving relationship. Loss of libido, depression and apathy, irritation with everything your loved ones say and do, fatigue, hypersensitivity to noise, temperature, and touch are just a few of the manifestations of this hormonal rollercoaster ride.

Christiane Northrup, author of The Wisdom of Menopause, starts her book of 500+ pages with this sentence “It is no secret that relationship crises are a common side effect of menopause.”

Okay, well it may not have been an intentionally kept secret, but I sure never heard anything about this. (Or any other of the myriad manifestations of the hormonal sh*tstorm we call the Big M.) And I’m a registered nurse for pity’s sake.

Dr. Northrup goes on to elucidate that whatever is wrong or dysfunctional in your relationships will be greatly exacerbated by menopause. I think that is true.

However, in all my talks and sharings with menopause goddesses and their loved ones, I’m finding that a huge amount of upheaval can exist in the most functional relationships.
The Venuses spent a significant part of every meeting focusing on our primary relationships. Suddenly sexual desire disappears. We may not have leisure time interests in common with our spouses. The kids are no longer a focus.  How then do we connect with one another?

And now our intimates want to spend more time with us (the men are changing, too, don’t forget.) We are just beginning to explore our creativity and may want to spend more time alone or with girlfriends  How do we reconcile these needs with our desire to be connected with our loved one?

It has been all too easy to assume that every freakout or episode of bitchiness is hormonal – “oh she’s just going through menopause”  rather than a legitimate reaction to circumstances.

Additionally, deeper difficulties may be brewing or problems long ignored have just come to the surface.

However, it is just as deluded to assume that this sea change isn’t hormonal. Especially if the change is fairly dramatic, seemingly without warning.

Theresa and I found that we went from zero to sixty on the irritation meter in seconds during the worst of our transition. Talking with the other Venuses showed us that we were not alone.

It became clear to us that we needed to ascertain when our anger was a legitimate problem, a true trampling of our boundaries versus a hormonal side effect. Let me tell you truthfully, it can really be hard to discern the difference.

Looking backward, I can offer this advice. Proceed with caution and take it slow. We found that irritation might flare up in a circumstance that we could certainly rationalize as being justifiable anger. But we often decided not to act or say anything right away. We mused. We waited. We paused.

If we were still pissed off in a few hours, we reevaluated and decided on a plan of action for confronting and discussing the problem. If our irritation had literally vanished, we knew that hormones might have played a part. And we let it go.  No harm, no foul.  Especially no harm. To us or anyone else.

(A little history sidenote here – none of the Venuses is a shrinking violet, unused to sharing her feelings, including anger. If you have always contained your anger and irritation, this may not be the best plan for you. You may need to let some anger out. After all, some Change is good!)

And some good news.  The worst of the emotional and hormonal upheaval seems to last around two years, give or take a year. So be patient. Get to know your irritation levels; when they require intervention and when they don’t. Warn your loved ones when you feel especially out of control so they won’t take it personally. Best of all, they can support you. They love you.  They want to help.  Let them.

“I LIKE it but I just don’t know if it’s my PASSION.”  Finding a life’s passion was a theme for some of our early (and recent) discussions at the Venus meetings. Our dissections of this topic have had an urgency to them. After all, we are now officially in the second half of our lives and we don’t want to waste a single second. We spent a lot of time in the first half working and building career and family life.  Now we want to “find our passion.”

I’ve been musing more about this lately.  And it seems to me, we don’t need to find our passion, necessarily.  Passion sounds huge, momentous, important and weighty.  We had questions galore about the passion quest: Where do we look for it? How do we know when we’ve found it? How much of a commitment do we make to it.

A passion should by definition be GRAND.  Or should it?

What if we just had a lot of little passions, small pastimes we enjoyed and delighted in like gardening, biking, and wine-tasting (in Beej’s case) or photography, hula, and golf in mine. More like passionettes. That would sure take the pressure off – finding the ONE special thing that we not only are in LOVE with (read passionate about) but are willing to abandon ourselves to and actually become good at doing or performing. How about we just fall in like (and out if that’s how it works.)

If we were to allow ourselves full access to our delight in our small “likes” rather than that one great LOVE or passion, might we then be able to relax into pure joy and contentment? And in so doing, discover that our real passion is LIFE?

I’m not sure, but I feel so much more comfortable and “full” when I look at my passionettes in this way.  I’ll likely never be a good golfer, but I really like it. I don’t want to golf every day or obsess about my score.  I just want to get outside, breathe fresh air, hit some pretty shots and maybe break 100 now and again.

I love hula – it’s my spiritual practice as well as a dance. And a crossroads has opened before me – do I want to go further and become a teacher? And the answer would likely be yes if it was my ONE PASSION. If I’m honest with myself, I’d have to say it is not. I can go to church and worship without needing to become a minister.

This past week, I’ve been indulging in my photography passionette.  Jack Davis (of the Photoshop WOW books) taught a class here on Moloka`i, Hawai`i with my handsome hubby Dewitt Jones. I’ve been reveling in taking photos with no real goal or endpoint in mind -  just pure pleasure

In fact, now that I’m no longer looking at photography as something “serious” or my passion, I’m experiencing way more fun and freedom. And my favorite camera?  My iPhone – because with all the cool apps, I can shoot, collage, and push the creative envelope to my heart’s content, no holds barred. (Check out my Digital Diva and Digital Diva / Digital Dude iPhone art sites.)

So I’ve given up looking to find my PASSION.  When I have family, good friends, and my small but vibrant passionettes, nothing is missing.  Nothing at all.