I have never been shy of admitting my age – in public or
otherwise – to the extent that I’ve had my year of birth in my email id from
the beginning. Life journey – from a pure physical body POV – has been a bit
unique as well I guess since I had my pregnancy in a ‘high-risk’ age zone at a
ripe old age of 39 years. When you have a child so late – your body tends to
remind you of your stupidity often enough.
Along with this very high degree of awareness of my age, I also
am a plan-ahead-or-you’ll-panic kind of a person. By now you would have understood
that I refused to be caught by surprise by something as dumb as a body change
due to age that I should have known about. What else did God make the internet
for if not for reading up all kinds of crap? J
So – flashback to about a year ago, when my 45th
birthday was coming up and I was kind of floating through a “what the F*&^
am I doing in life” kind of monologue in my head. Nothing new about that at all…
happens with me on a pretty regular basis. But I remember that there was this
moment which made me kind of sit up and tell myself – I need to get my health
in shape. While the excuse was that I have a young kid and need to stay active
for his sake… I truly believe that it was more driven by a constantly lethargic
and paining body shape I was in. Anyways, I shook myself up and decided to do
some more thinking about the topic. J
It so happened that 2 of my closest examples of fit-older-women
included my elder sister and a friend who’s also a few years older than me. Both
these women are known to be “regular” fitness freaks + diet conscious +
shall-do-what-it-takes-but-not-be-unhealthy kind of morons. Sorry, women. As I interacted
with them around that time, I realised that both were going through a
depressing time in their physical health zone – and almost raging an uphill
battle to just be in control of their bodies. Simply because the big 5 oh had
hit them and they were in full throes of the dreaded menopause cycle.
Now think of the panic which hit me – these were really
committed to health ladies struggling to cope with the cant-call-them-side
effects of a purely hormonal change in the body – much much beyond anything in
their control. If they could go through all this – what will happen to the
regular i-shall-be-as-lazy-as-i-can-get-away-with ol’ me??
Thus started my indulgence into evening walks, participation
in 2 different 5 km runs (where I insisted on only walking) to get some
excitement going as well as a little more conscious eating pattern. And yet I have
to admit that being actually hit the big-M was not on the horizon or even in a
corner of my head. It was after all something that seemed to hit only when you’re
50 – which was a hugeeeeeee number of years away. In my head. For sure.
As months went by – regular lethargy took over as it
normally does. Walks became more infrequent, 10k a day steps target went down
to ‘4-5 k achievement is a good day’ goal. My logic remained that if the
health-freaks I knew could have a bad time dealing with menopause – an
absolutely not-really-healthy person like me would be severely impacted – but only
WHEN THE TIME COMES. NOT NOW.
Hence you can imagine my surprise when just a few short
months later – there were reasons for me to believe that something was not 100%
ok with me – and I just mean the regular ol’ unhealthy me. My PMS over the last
year or so extended its grip on my calendar – from a tame 3-4 days earlier, it
now occupied a lion share of my life. As I put it (with a bit of exaggeration) –
there seemed to be no gap between the period and the next cycle’s PMS!! However
since my cycle continued relatively unaffected, I was going with the flow (pun
completely intended!).
So what made me stop in my flowy tracks you ask? Well
consider this scenario – when you find yourself harbouring more-than-normal
murderous at their peak and divorcing at its minimalistic level thoughts… and
this state continues for a few DAYS… not a few moments… but days… And then one
day you wake up to find smiling in a very silly fashion at your-yesterday-self –
that is when it strikes you that maybe, just maybe – there is a problem
somewhere within your own head. And that this wasn’t the first time in recent
few months that this high level of rage swing has happened.
That’s when you notice that there was tenderness in your
erstwhile sensuous lady-parts for a few days – which were NOT in the PMS zone.
Or that your last few makeout sessions have not been necessarily the stuff to
set as benchmarks – purely on the pain they leave behind. Or that lo-and-behold
a much unexpected period had made its appearance halfway to its mark.
That’s when you pause and reflect – is there something I’m
missing out to notice? Is the dreaded time starting for me? Is this the worst
symptom or are there other demons lurking to catch me by surprise? How the
f*&^ do I control this? CAN I control this? What shook me up totally was
the absolute loss of control I felt once the rage-swing was over (or was it
just on a pause mode)?
This was about 2 months ago… since then I have been on a
researching spree. Its in my inherent nature to read and understand what the
hell I’m dealing with. Helps me achieve a sense of control I guess. Definitely calms
me down. Writing and sharing what I feel and think does this even faster. And who
knows there might be similar lost souls like mine who are yet to figure out
what is happening to them and could be helped by sharing my journey on this
path.
This blog/diary is my ode to that. The rest… as one of my
favorite things to say has been since I was a teenager… Let me meet the
Almighty and he’s going to get a kick in the rear for sure! Why oh why has he
BLESSED only the women with so many of his blessings???
:)
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