Welcome to “The Pause!” Every Wednesday (if I can find women of a certain age who are willing to share their experience with me and you) there will be a new post.

Why am I doing this? Well, I’m almost 50 and I would REALLY like to feel less alone in this new chapter of my life. I feel like our culture doesn’t want to talk about menopause. It’s like if you admit that your period has stopped, you are admitting to something shameful or unnatural. Like death, menopause is both inevitable (if you’re lucky enough to grow older) and pretty darn natural. I used to think it was hard to get people to talk about death, but you can double that hesitancy when it comes to chatting about “THE CHANGE.” So let’s change that.

Maybe I don’t watch enough television, but I can only think of two instances in my life where a menopausal woman was reflected in popular media. The first, and oh my gosh, is it dated is from All in the Family. Apparently, Edith’s Problem was groundbreaking for the time and even won an Emmy.

The second is from the film, Fried Green Tomatoes, which has one of my favorite retorts in a film, “Face it girls, I’m older and I have more insurance.”

If you know of any other movies or television shows that focused on a woman going through perimenopause/menopause. Tell me in the comments! I want to see myself on film.

So, before we begin our chat with Claire. Let’s define perimenopause and menopause from Merriam Webster’s online dictionary.

Definition of menopause

1: the natural cessation of menstruation that usually occurs between the ages of 45 and 55also : the period during which such cessation occurs

— called also climacteric

— compare PERIMENOPAUSE

2: cessation of menstruation from other than natural causes

Definition of perimenopause

: the period around the onset of menopause that is often marked by various physical signs (such as hot flashes and menstrual irregularity)

So now that that’s clear, here’s my first willing participant. Claire Lopez is a writer who enjoys hiking and traveling. A former English teacher,her debut novel (Class Letters) highlights a letter writing practice she used in her own classroom to connect with her students. She lives in Texas with her husband and dogs, and dreams of the mountains.

1.      Do you remember your mother or an older woman in your family going through “the change of life?” If so, what was that like?

Unlike most people of their generation, my parents married “late” in life. She was 36 and he was 40. I was born the following year, and my brother three and a half years later. I assume she was 50ish when she hit menopause which would have put me around 13. It was a challenging time for us. Maybe it was the menopause, or maybe I was a bratty adolescent! It could have been either!

2.      Was perimenopause/menopause ever discussed with you by your mother, sister, friend, or a doctor? If so, what did that discussion entail?

I know I never talked to my mother about it, and I don’t remember much from a doctor other than discussing the date of my last period.

3.      Was menopause something you feared or something you looked forward to? (Yay, no more periods! Boo, I’m drowning in my own sweat!)

I didn’t fear menopause; I looked forward to no longer have to deal with my period.

4.      What was your experience like? Did you burst into flames? Grow a mustache? Gain a ton of weight? Lose your hair? Lose your mind? Or was it easy peasy, Tampax can kiss my vageasy?

From what I've read and heard, my experience was relatively tame, I believe. I’d heard of women with night sweats so bad they’d have to change their nightgown and sheets in the middle of the night. I’d wake up and just my chest was sweaty. I may have had a slight issue with mood swings, but my children and the students I taught around that time might be a better judge of my temperament. I certainly remember hot flashes! I felt like the heat meter in my head went from normal temperature to 1000 degrees in a nanosecond or a flash as the case may be. The only thing that seemed to help was a hand held folding fan, and my only recourse seemed to be to buy a dozen and stash them all over my house and classroom. I remember teaching at the front of the classroom, feeling the onset of the hot flash and racing to my desk to find a fan before my head exploded. Good times!

5.      Is there anything you wish you had known before you went through menopause or anything you would have done differently?

I found my first chin hair well over 25 years ago (late 30’s). It never occurred to me that it was a sign my body was changing. I was completely taken aback and deeply embarrassed, especially since the man I was seeing noticed it before I did. By the time I reached perimenopause, my mother had dementia and was no longer a resource for information. But she used to say she’d rather take a nice trip than have a face lift, which seemed to speak to her acceptance of the aging process. While not all aspects of the aging process are a joy (to say the least!) I embrace who I am and where I am on my timeline.

Thank you so much, Claire, for sharing your experience. And you can too! Just reach out via my contact page. If you want me to reach out to you and help me do my little part to help save the USPS. I bought a TON of stamps and if you sign up for my newsletter, I will send you some swag (stickers, bookmarks and now buttons!) from my debut novel Forever 51. (It’s about an eternally menopausal vampire.)