The meno list

Mattingly Chiropractic is happy to continue to release a series of blogs on the subject of menopause by local author, Carolyn Carter.  Enjoy!

In order to remind myself that I am still a vital, productive, sexy female, I have been putting a list together in my head of future stuff I want to do. For lack of anything more creative, I secretly call it my meno list. Unlike a bucket list (a list of stuff you want to do before you die), I wanted my meno list to remind me how vibrant I am.

I won’t go into all the details of what’s on that list, but two of them include jumping out of a perfectly good airplane and becoming a bestselling novelist. The others are of a more personal nature, which I don’t care to share with the blogging community.

So, what’s the point, you might be asking yourself . . . ?

Point is, we need to remember we’re still productive, sexy members of society even if we’re not reproductively productive. In our youth-obsessed culture, and partially just because we’re women and we’re the only ones who can bear children, it’s an uplifting revelation to know that we’re still very much alive even after menopause. My whole head has done a 180 simply by acknowledging this.

My list gets longer every day because of it. Maybe not everyone is a deep thinker when it comes to this life-changing stuff. Maybe one day you had a hot flash or two; one missed period turned into twelve, and you found yourself doing cartwheels in the hallway! Maybe you booked a sexy cruise with your other half, and told the whole world you no longer had to stop in the feminine care aisle once a month. Hey, more power to you, sistah!

While I didn’t bawl openly, I did feel a nagging sense of losing something at first. Talking to my friends, usually older women, helped. I was reminded of that classic line from Fried Green Tomatoes delivered by Jessica Tandy, “There’s nothing wrong with you. You just need to get you some hormones, honey.” Yeah, I was pretty ho-hum. I had my moments of feeling a little sorry for myself.

So, I started reading. Getting informed has helped me more than I can tell you. And I started taking some good supplements. That helped even more. Now, I find myself in a position of helping several of my friends through it—and it’s a great feeling. I’m amazed how little we, as women, know about menopause (other than the obvious.)

And if it helps you in your head to start your own secret meno list, well, that’s between you and your list. Maybe I’ll see you in the skydiving circuit . . .