dandelion swirl © lynette sheppard

“I’m sorry about your weight,” said Marcia, the checker at my local Safeway.
“Wha… what?” I stammered, wondering if I’d worn pants that showed the two extra pounds I’d regained over my HCG diet weight.
“I know it took a long time, but her credit card wasn’t working and…”
I burst out laughing. “Oh, you’re sorry for the wait! If you knew what I heard…. I wanted to say that you couldn’t possibly be as sorry as I am… I’ve been practicing avoidance maneuvers to get around the scale in the bathroom.”
Marcia is a woman of Menopause Goddess persuasion and began to laugh, too.
“Don’t even go there,” she giggled. “I’m way ahead of you.”

Just when I was beginning to feel that I’d gotten a pretty good handle on the mental changes that have alternated between distressing and hilarious, I now find that my ability to process information is on the blink.

I’ve been taking my acetyl-l-carnitine religiously and my memory has been pretty good (for my age.) And I am definitely less spacy – the brain fog has  mostly cleared leaving just a few misty spots. I even caught a problem in a legal document recently that saved us a lot of time and trouble.

So while I wasn’t all the way to smug about my mental faculties, I felt like I could hold my head up pretty high.

Until today. When I had trouble understanding words in context in my native tongue.

I do think I have discovered the best thing about Menopause, though. It’s not the lack of monthly cycles (although that’s pretty good.) It’s not the transition to elder (with its assumption of wisdom, although that’s pretty good, too.) It’s not even the feeling of comfort in my loosening skin. (Although that’s great…just sayin’…)

Nope. The very best thing about Menopause is that I will be kept laughing for the rest of my life. Because what else can a Menopause Goddess do when confronted with the shifting sands of time? It is just so freaking funny. My sense of humor is in better shape than ever. Thank heavens something is!