Okay…so that might be a bit dramatic. But I was not prepared for the last few weeks. You see, something has apparently started in my body. I have been having trouble sleeping. My heart has been racing. I cry easily – or I am ready to tackle a bull head on. And what is this weird feeling crawling over my skin? It feels like a heat blanket….OHMYGOD. I either have some very bad disease – or my body has started another cycle of being a woman. I am entering peri-menopause.  Now, I have self diagnosed this, and I will confirm this with a doctor in a few days.  But I am pretty sure that I am about to face a new phase of my female journey.

Approaching menopause means many different things to many different people. Some women I am sure would welcome the loss of their period – but I feel kind of attached to the monthly circle of fertility – even though I have not been “fertile” for years, and my desire for more children is long past.

But there was something about being a part of Mother Nature’s dance inside of my body every month that made me feel connected to the earth – and to other women. I am not welcoming this change.  Maybe it was all of my years of infertility – and hating my period. I had to make peace with it. That it was not a sign of my infertility and failure – but as a chance for renewal. It took some work – but I got there.

And now I fear – I will miss this monthly renewal of my body.  In it’s place will be something else, and I don’t know yet what it is. A different kind of cycle that I am not used to yet. I feel like I am thirteen – as the hormones are once again racking my body in a new way. But the possibility -of new life with my own eggs is now a window forever closed.  I was done – but now that I am finished – a melancholy sigh escapes my body as I sweat out a fond farewell.

Will some one please open a window?