Last year I moved seven hours away from the town I had been living in for the past 20 years. I left behind decades-long friendships that had seen me through the early years of motherhood, through my divorce, through everything. I left behind a man I loved. I was positive this was the right decision as I sold almost everything I owned. Positive even though I cried in my little car for the entire seven hour drive to my new apartment. I told myself that this was the right decision, that it was time for a change, that I wanted new everything. A new life, new friends, new furniture, a new apartment. Maybe even a new man.
All of which would be fine, if it was definitely a decision made by the real me in my real brain. I know now it was not. I had not yet learned to play a little game that is now so familiar to me at 52 called, “Is it me, or is it menopause?”
It turns out I might not always be the driver of the decision bus in my brain these days. And it’s sort of funny when it comes to the small stuff like eating three tacos over the sink right before bed like I’m in some sort of fugue state. I don’t remember making the tacos, and I don’t remember eating the first two. I appeared to join the party around two or three bites into the final taco and had to do a little crime scene investigation to discover that my body did indeed make and consume these tacos. This was not a big concern because both versions of me, the regular and the perimenopausal, love a spicy cauliflower taco.
It’s the bigger decisions that scare me — the ones that have seen me uprooting my life or selling all my belongings or changing my hair to an unfortunate reddish-orange color that does nothing for my rosacea. Because at first, I really didn’t think my brain had changed at all. I went flouncing into the early stages of perimenopause. I’d heard talk of the hot flashes I should expect, the sleepless nights, the weight gain and hormonal shifts. But at the end of the rainbow I would stop getting my period and honestly, this was the only part of menopause that held my attention. Bye bye tampons!
What I didn’t know was that there would be stretches of time when I just absolutely do not feel like myself. I’m talking about long days and even weeks of feeling almost completely checked out. Like I handed someone else the keys to my car and sat in the backseat with my earbuds in, listening to some music while the driver decided where we were going.
The worst part of it all was that I didn’t even know to question who was driving the car. I thought it was still me. I didn’t think to talk to my friends or my doctor, because I didn’t think anything was wrong. Physically I was the same. And so I just packed up my car and dyed my hair reddish-orange like I was clear-eyed about everything. My boyfriend stood in the driveway and watched me drive seven hours away, feeling helpless. He tried to talk to me, tried to point out that I was walking away from a whole life I had spent years building, but it made no difference.
It took me about four months after I moved away and unpacked my very few belongings in my very white apartment to understand that I’d made this decision… but not exactly. It took days of walking alone in my lonely new life to figure out that I was not where I wanted to be. That reddish-orange hair was not the cutting edge look I convinced myself it was. Taking swing dancing classes wasn’t going to make me a new person. Yes, I was still getting my period as regular as clockwork, but my brain had started to go through the early stages of perimenopause. I spoke to friends, spoke to my mom, spoke to my doctor and found out that this isn’t that unusual. That they all felt like someone else for a while. Or started to forget stuff. Or cried more. Or cried less. Or just felt different.
I started to take a beat. To ask myself “is this me or is this menopause?” when I thought it was a really good idea to sell my car and buy a Vespa. Or go back to school to become a full-time baker even though I only know how to bake about three kinds of cookies. Or stock up on Count Chocula and wear striped rugby shirts even though my shoulders are not rugby shirt-friendly.
I take a beat now. I breathe. I think about my decisions. And if it turns out I’m in the backseat with those earbuds in while menopause is deciding where we’re going, I take one out and just say “hold on now.”
I am back home now. Hired a moving truck, kept some of my furniture, came back to the man I love. I’m still eating tacos over the sink. Repairing my life. And it’s enough for now.
Jen McGuire is a contributing writer for Romper and Scary Mommy. She lives in Canada with four boys and teaches life writing workshops where someone cries in every class. When she is not traveling as often as possible she’s trying to organize pie parties and outdoor karaoke with her neighbors. She will sing Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” at least once but she’s open to requests.
