In one of my recent notes, I mentioned some symptoms of the change of life I’ve been struggling through. If you’re a male reader, please don’t leave, fellows need to know about this too. 

The first stages went by pretty fast. First, I was a girl minding her own business, then Aunt Flow showed up with a package I didn’t order. It’s for having babies. A monthly subscription, apparently. As a teenager in the late 1990s, kids having kids was highly discouraged. Having kids as a college student and then a working adult was also highly discouraged. Suddenly I almost missed my window of opportunity.

I barely sprang off my offspring as (checks notes) geriatric pregnancies. It seems like just yesterday that I was breastfeeding while Zooming. 

Now that my youngest wants to be a YouTuber, my human manufacturing plant is shutting down in the most extreme fashion— turning on and off all the heat and lights every few hours. If you’re looking for the cause of climate change, it might be me.

First I tried vitamins and metals. Starting with the alphabet, I took vitamins E, D and B-6 through 12. I have Zinc for my skin, Iron for my blood and Magnesium for my bones and alloys. My relatives sent me probiotics and prebiotics. My friends recommended Red Clover and Black Cohosh. The internet sold me mixed mushrooms. If I I were living in 1690s, I’d definitely be burned at the stake for witch craft, and it would be a self-igniting fire. 

Enough is enough. Last month, I called the major medical complex that we spent tens of thousands of dollars on every year and made an appointment. They don’t have a menopause specialist, but I could talk with a Nurse Practitioner who is also Female for twenty minutes for a minimal copayment. 

The first nurse weighed me and gave me a survey to fill out. I thought it was for perimenopause symptoms, but it turned out to be for mental health. To be fair, depression and hormonal imbalances occupy similar spaces. Am I sad and mad? Am I hot and not? Has day drinking become my happy place? Armed with a my hand-checked confession of derangement, the NP started in about Zoloft and Ambien, their side effects are fuzzy mind and reduced libido. “Actually, I am here to specifically avoid those outcomes.”

Almost at the end of my paid pharmaceutical commercial, she wrote me a script for some progesterone pills and a weekly patch that would give me micro doses of the estrogen my body has been intermittently denying me—to ease the landing. Despite what I may have heard, estrogen is only associated with a little bit of cancer and just some blood clots. It also helps maintain bone density, protects against cardiovascular disease, reduces hot flashes, improves vaginal dryness, and helps mitigate mood swings. As we wrapped up, the medical professional said something about men going through changes too. You guys can chime in about that at our next appointment.