Unlike most women my age, I'm proudly 47 years young; I am also officially menopausal since I was 38. And to those who don't know what that means, what it entails - it means the reproductive system has closed shop never to operate once more. With it comes a few major losses like the loss of skin elasticity and suppleness, estrogen levels drop like hot potatoes, mood swings are one the up-rise and libido walks out and might never visit ever again.
When I was informed 9 years ago the doctors totally took out everything - from the ovary to the uterus to save my life - I considered it a blessing, freedom in fact from the monthly crap all women have to go through and the only consolation I had was a baby boy, the last and only one I would ever have again.The OB told me to prepare myself emotionally, physically and psychologically for what's coming once the menopause was in full swing. I thought to myself - I've weathered more storms in my life, I could handle this one.
Imagine my chagrin and shock waking up a few mornings back wondering if I was prepared to lose that urge for intimacy and sensuality as a woman and if I would ever be "attractive" to a man ever again. Worse part of it, I was wondering where my sense and need for intimacy went to. Libido is such a "cheap" way of describing the need for physical contact but I'm only human, we are all only human and when we're 20, 25, 30 or 35 - we really don't pay any attention to it. The need is always there, the satisfaction is always there, and we tend to take for granted the basic instinct for wanting such - to feel human and feel needed, to make contact with another human being on that level. Some have cheapen it to a "one night stand" or something you can pay for - but I'm pertaining to something mutually shared by two consenting adults who know what they're doing, why they are doing it and they have a shared need for it. Anyone who denies it is a hypocrite.
We all have a need to be with people and we often seek out unconsciously our own hidden needs from other people. That's human nature. And I don't see it as cheap or shallow because once it is failed to be met and fulfilled - everything is lousy, everyone is faceless and useless, the entire world become 2 dimensional and narrow and gloomy. Look but you can't touch. And all we see are facades.
Now I am faced with the dread of growing "old" without feeling that need and to be scared of being rejected and humiliated for what I've become, how I've evolved. I've heard it said to my face that I am twice the woman I am now and it's usually a pun on my weight and my waist line. I think people who can nonchalantly say that to another person is totally insensitive and vain, boastful and totally insecure at the same time. Because it has caused such insecurities and pain in me as well. I have scars I cannot hide and it has dealt the biggest physical blow to my sensual ego. If I find it disgusting looking at the scars that led to my son being born, what more other people? Only I know the "value" of those scars and to be degraded and insulted because of it has kept my sensuality on hold if not forever lost to the elements of time. And I have not much time left before my body finally surrenders to the results of losing that system.
So what do I do about it? I don't know. For the first time in my life I don't know how to move on and accept certain inequities on my part. For the first time in my life I am scared because I can feel my body growing old by the minute and its not something I can stop no matter what I do or don't do. Losing a physical part of me does not make me incomplete as a human being. But it lessens my essence as a woman especially in the area of sensuality and the need for human physical contact. I'm sure someone will say - heck girl, what's your problem? You're married, aren't you? I'lll just laugh and shrug it off. The element of respect has long been lost in that department and I have certain quirks when it comes to being intimate. I need to be with someone who respects me and respects me back on the same level. No more, no less. And the essence of attraction and emotional attraction is also a big must for me. If I'm not attracted, nothing is ever going to happen even if you took 10 horses to drag me or pointed a gun to my head.
I respect a lot of people who respect me back but I am only rarely attracted to a few and more often that not, due to my own personal insecurities, I just shut up and keep quiet, take a cold shower when I get home. And more often than not, I find myself in tears in the shower and its pathetic I know. But I will have to live with it, deal with it on a day to day basis, keep myself engrossed with work to avoid thinking about it or even feeling that hole in my soul and just forever delude myself that the need is just a lie. A stupid feminine illusion of mine.
So why do I write now? I'm hoping that when the time comes and the same thing happens to you, it won't feel that you're all alone as I do now. Because this was forced upon me by circumstance and not something that happened naturally with age. I hope it would find its way to someone who has the same issues as I do and learn from it, find some kind of emotional support from it. The emptiness doesn't hit everyday. It hits when you least expect it, it hits when you have a need for it, it hits when you're praying it won't hit at all.
I also write for the men who'll take time to read it that they may understand why women are the way they are especially when this happens to the women in their lives. We're not getting any younger. We're all getting older by the minute. And we can delay it, we can do a lot of things to delay its arrival but the bottom line is - it will happen as it happened to me. In the process of the entire thing, I lost my gut as well, the nerve to take a chance and do something exciting with my pathetic life. I wouldn't call it resignation to a boring unsensual life, its more like forced seclusion from being rejected and laughed at, ridiculed and made fun of. I don't know anyone who isn't intimidated by rejection. To me, seeing myself no longer attractive by my standards is in fact rejection in itself and its hard to deal with it alone.
I pray that women stay strong and brave when they wake up one day faced with the gnawing fact that time is catching up on them. May we all age with graciousness and acceptance, to always be happy and not let anything sink us or sink skin deep. Nothing on Earth is permanent. Neither are we. But we can always leave behind the small minute lessons we've learned reaching the age that we have and move on from there to a much better life.
We celebrate Women's Month by celebrating the Strength of Women and just how far we've come.
