Another Perk Of The Menopausal Years

A lot of getting older sucks balls.

I don’t like the tissue paper skin or the lines around my eyes and fuck those wiry gray eyebrows. I don’t like that my body creaks. I hate the permanent nerve damage in my feet. My feet are nearly always hot and on pins and needles. My doctor says they will stay that way. I don’t like that. I don’t like not being able to read small print, even with my readers. I don’t want my body to fail me at all, but it’s failing a little.

It’s not all gray hair, thin skin, and achy bones.

There are some perks to getting older.

I was willing, just a few moments ago, to walk out on my deck wearing green rubber sandals and a white bath robe stained with hundreds of dollars worth of Sephora cosmetics.

It feels so fucking good to not care about shit like that. I don’t care what people think of how I look. I look the way I look. I’m okay with that.

I am so much digging speaking my mind.

I don’t mean telling people off, I mean just being real about who I am. For instance, I started this new job and early on, I was invited to sit at a table with a bunch of strange women to eat lunch. I had no problem saying “Oh, thank you. I don’t really know you guys and I’m a little socially anxious”.

I’ve been eating lunch at my desk or in my car for 6 weeks now.

I like these new women I work with. They say ‘motherfucker’ a lot. I feel like I’ve found a tribe. Maybe not my tribe, but one I can visit and feel comfortable.

It occurred to me, while I was standing on my deck in my nasty bathrobe, that if a virtual stranger announced to me that they were a little socially anxious then I would think they were odd. At least a little odd.

It was like a lightning bolt. Hey! Wait wait wait. Is it possible that people really do view me as odd?

I mean, I know what I say. I’m so weird. I’m a little crazy. But I know who I am and underneath it all I’m as normal as vanilla ice cream. The person people see? Well, I feel a little bit like I’ve got a magician from Kansas behind a screen pulling levers.

Still. when the smoke clears, I’m not really weird. I’m mildly quirky, but mostly normal.

Maybe, I’m not. I mean, if I consider how people must view me, they have to see me as a little odd. I say outrageous things sometimes, but surely they see it’s only because it’s funny and not because I’m terribly weird.

Maybe, I am a little odd.

See? This is what I’m saying about it being a perk to get older.

I don’t care if I’m a little odd. I am as comfortable with that as I am my dirty old bathrobe.

This past Friday? One of the girls at work gave me shit about being a snob when I was getting my lunch out of the fridge. I lied to her face and said, “I’m working on something and I don’t want to stop”. She rolled her eyes and said “Five minutes? You can’t take five minutes to sit down and eat with us”?

I did. I sat with them and had lunch It was lovely. They cursed a lot.

49 Thoughts.

  1. I have found that I wear half as much make-up and fuss way way less about my hair these days. It’s been kind of liberating to realise that my mother was right… People are not looking at me. Now that I’m 56 I’m invisible to everyone under 40.

  2. One of my best friends, who is going on sixty, tells me the exact same thing. I really wish we (=I) could get into that kind of mindset sooner. Worrying about other people all the time is so freaking exhausting :s

  3. I have a feeling that anyone with more than half a brain thinks they’re “weird” these days, since the norm appears to be about a quarter.
    For my part, I think you’re odd, but that’s why I like you. I suspect it’s why you like your coworkers. Odd attracts odd. Odd is its own tribe, and we all belong.

  4. I’m simultaneously becoming more socially awkward and caring less about it as I get older. I prefer to think of this as “maturing into my iconoclastic phase” rather than “turning into a crazy old broad.” Because she who names the thing controls the thing.

    Also, so lovely to be mutual followers on the Twitters!

  5. What a lovely piece. Left me with a smile. Especially the part about the robe stained with hundreds of dollars of makeup from Sephora. Because that shit is so me, except the stains are all over the bedsheets. <3

  6. I’m just post menopause ….I’ve recently had an epiphany of similar proportions.
    It’s wonderful to just not give any fucks about superfluous things…about being an odd duck.
    This is me…I’m a bit weird…take me as I am or go on your way, I won’t be offended.

  7. Nuragen for the pins and needles in your feet. My husband swears by it (follow the directions) and don’t buy the ointment, just the topical solution. (E-bay is the cheapest you can find it).

    I took early retirement because I didn’t think I’d live long enough to suck up all I paid into Social Security – and after a cancer scare a year ago, I’m glad that I did. So far so good, but all that smirking I did about getting “mine” left wrinkles. Screw ’em.

      • Diabetic Neuropathy? A podiatrist I saw many years ago started me on a regimen of Folic Acid/Niacin/Capsaicin Cream which worked (took about a year for it to completely take care of the pins/sharp pains in my feet). I have backed down to using the capsaicin cream (2x a day) only when my feet are bothering me, and only need to use it for a week or so. For me it’s been great, and the cream is easily obtainable.

  8. You ain’t the only one. I’ve always been odd and I’m pretty okay with it. Some people do and some don’t and I find that I’m okay with that too. I am very socially anxious and I say Motherfucker all the time and I even have that painful feet feel like hot burning coal thing going on! Maybe we should start a new tribe haha!

  9. God love the cursers. Jes sayin’. When I first meet someone, it takes several visits before I drop a few swears here and there….testing the waters (if they don’t do it first, that is). I know they’re “my people” if this doesn’t bother them. Then? I let out a couple F-Bombs. That’s the real test. I cannot hang with people who can’t take the unfiltered Beth. Once they passed the test – it’s game on motherfuckers!!! hahaha

  10. I don’t think you’re odd – I think you’re awesome. I threw away most of my people categories and pretty much all I have left is Awesome and Asshole. When I became more tolerant of myself and realized that I don’t have to fit into a certain little box, that spilled over into my perception of the rest of the world. I don’t feel the need to be normal and I don’t feel the need to be really strange to cover up the fact that I am not normal – I can just be me. And I expect everyone else to do the same. And that’s how I discovered that just about everyone is either awesome or an asshole. It’s pretty amazing how much clearer the world becomes when you clean your “windows” – I just wish we didn’t have to be so old to find the Windex!

  11. Well, the bathrobe might send a crazy lady message but so what. Right? I love that it has Sephora makeup stains on it. That shit cost good money. You’re as normal as any woman out there. I think it’s good that you don’t feel you have to fit in with a group at work. It’s kind of like high school all over again. Did we ever really leave?

  12. A few weeks ago, it was such beautiful weekend weather, I thought I’d put my makeup on outside. Wow, is that really how my face/skin looks to everybody else?? Come to find out, there’s a reason I like the low lighting in my bathroom mirror. 🙂

  13. Not having gone through menopause, I’ll take your word for it. I like odd people the best, and society’s expectations about women’s behavior and appearance are screwy anyway…
    “Give us a twirl and tell us about your outfit” I’ve got a better idea; how about you fuck yourself in the nose with a frozen earthworm.
    You may eventually find that you enjoy lunching with your co-workers, but there’s nothing wrong with taking your time about it. After all, you’re going to be spending a LOT of time around them already.

  14. I think it’s great as we grow older we give less of a rats butt about what people think. Yesterday A and I went to the local hardware store in our grubby old house clothes because we were working around the house and I said ” I can’t be bothered to shower and change – I’m going like this” and he was “That’s OK but you know we’ll probably bump into someone we know” and I was “That’s OK – they don’t have to look at me if they don’t want – I don’t care” – and because I didn’t care we didn’t bump into anyone !! I spent far too many hours /days/weeks/months/years worrying about what other people think – now I don’t give a toss and do what I want anyway !
    OLDIES UNITE !!!
    Have the best day xox

  15. lol. some days I don’t even brush my hair, and with my short hair cut it can look, well, kinda odd and sticky uppey. don’t care.
    Dirty old bathrobe….hah…somedays I go out on the back porch naked!

  16. I’m glad you’ve finally had lunch with them and that is wasn’t horrendous.
    I had a feeling it wouldn’t be.
    I’m not normal on the inside. I’m definitely weird, probably very weird but I’m good with that.
    Stuff this getting older lark, I want to do 19 all over again.
    The being invisible thing does have its bonuses at times, but it just increases my feeling that I’ll end up like Eleanor Rigby.
    🙂

  17. Yes the days when I would have to change my clothes before going to the shops are long gone and not coming back, if I am going down to buy a loaf of bread I will just go in what I am wear unless I am wearing my pj’s………….then I change. I like who I am more and more the older I get

  18. (I kinda like the failing eyesight thing, I look so much better in the mirror without my glasses… maybe that’s what I’m getting from today’s Post)

    excellent.

  19. New social situations make me a little anxious too. I’m going to a 4-day writer’s workshop in my home town and all I can think of is who am I going to have lunch with?! I’m back in middle school! As for the crepey eye-skin, I refuse to look in the mirror with my glasses on. Takes 5-10 years off in a snap!

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