Menopause, or whatever this thing is that happens to a female’s body when it’s winding down from any future tenancies, is not a friend to your sleep or your mood. It wakes you up in the middle of the night to change tee-shirts and then has you pulling off your jammy pants at 7am because you’ve accidentally knocked an entire cup of hot coffee and coffee grounds onto yourself. Then adding insult to burn injury, you feel like you can’t trust yourself to make a second cup.
It’s exactly those kind of unrested, uncaffeinated, unsteady mornings that you should not ride the bus into school with one of your old tenants who vacated thirteen years ago. Because whatever they say - bold or benign - is bound to storm around with your hormones making you feel worse. “Please don’t come because your exercise clothes are a little embarrassing” is hardly warfare but when your defenses are down, it finds a crevice.
“Wait, don’t tell me. Kate!” beamed the Starbucks barista who surprised me by remembering my name later this morning. I’m sure he recognised me in my exercise clothes. That too finds a crevice.
Whether it’s menopause or something else that robs you of balance, there is some shame in admitting you feel empty or have longer lapses of joy when you have a life littered with good things. You feel like you should be able to hold on tighter to the many things you’re grateful for when a challenge comes. But I was reminded today, it’s exactly those moments of challenge that are our signals to stand up and work to find strength.
“I know, I know …” said my wise Psycle instructor as we climbed through a particularly tough stretch of the workout. When things are hard we don’t want people to tell us how to fix it, or that we are doing a great job, we want them to say “I know.” We want to know this is hard for other people too and not just us being a wimp.
Maybe - I’ve been wondering as I learn to befriend this stage in life - even a forced-upon-you imbalance in your life can been a grounding force for good to help you cycle through admitting need, building strength and receiving grace.
Most importantly, regardless of the thing that has you out of sorts, the people in our lives are too interested in loving us than keeping a record of our grievances.
“I like you.” texted my husband out of the blue today. But of course it wasn’t really out of the blue because the people in our lives know exactly when we need to be reminded we are not only loved, but still good company too.