MAKING THINGS MAKE SENSE AGAIN
Or, Tara Tells the Truth About An Epiphany
The last few weeks have been full of a lot of things I’ve been grateful for, even as the Trumpian nightmare garbage fire global embarrassment continues to rage.
Among those things is just my basic health, which is something we all take for granted until we can’t. I thankfully had a negative biopsy result late last month after experiencing some breakthrough bleeding caused by the HRT regimen I’d been prescribed. But then the bleeding started again, and that meant some additional rebalancing was needed with my prescriptions. And then it stopped again, but I’m still scheduled for an internal sonogram just to be extra super sure we’re all good under the hood.
The fact that I’m even openly discussing my menopause on the internet is somewhat miraculous, considering the stigma that historically has come with the ending of the menses. However, GenX has once again set a trend because we’re all somewhere on the menopausal spectrum, and we’re not going quietly.
Aside from the open discussions, thanks to multiple celebrities having their own lines of menopause-relief products, there’s also the badass Menopunks, led by the tireless Alicia J. Rose. The Riot Grrrls are breaking through all of the bullshit, and now it’s cool as fuck to talk about your hot flashes and estrogen levels.
It’s in the spirit of breaking new ground around this topic that I bring you this epiphany I had two days ago while walking on NE Alberta in Portland on the hottest day of the year thus far:
My perimenopause coincides with Trump announcing he was running for President. GenX women were rightfully angry in 2016 for so many reasons, but holy fuck, we were ALL going through it.
My perimenopause was brutal; I was an emotional wreck who had no fuse left, and I felt white-hot rage more often than not. Now I can see it: the MAGA bullying I got made things a million times worse than if the Republicans had stood up to Trump’s blackmail threats instead of giving in to them. Would there even be a MAGA now? The mind reels at all the “What ifs,” dunnit?
Anyway. I was 46 when that monster descended that tacky gold escalator and flung his loaded diaper all over our lives. That’s prime peri age. In fact, my peri was peaking hard from 2016 to 2020, and then I went through menopause during a global pandemic by myself.
Fun!
But it makes so much sense to me now that those raging hormones no longer control me. That doesn’t mean I still don’t get angry about everything worth getting mad about, but it does mean I deal with it much better now. I have healthy ways of expressing myself, including this site you’re using right now. I don’t even remember anything shitty anyone says to me on social, because 99.99% of the hate comes from bot accounts that aren’t worth remembering.
Understanding yourself is a huge thing. People chase the answers to their questions for their whole lives, and sometimes they just come to us when we’re not even trying to solve a problem. It’s just a part of being human and having a brain like a personal computer, individualized by our unique biologies.
Science is so cool!
And talk about gratitude! I feel so lucky to have survived both menopause and MAGA bullying. Women who live alone for a long time are so used to slogging through and being strong for ourselves that we don’t even stop to think about it. But there’s that voice, that inner monologue, that wisdom seemingly coming from nowhere, which is really just us processing and living. I found this crazy long post on Threads that resonated with me (mostly), so click through, and if you find anything in here that hits, take it with you and leave the rest.
I like it. Change starts with you!
I’m still fighting the good fight on Raw Story, where my latest is all about how Trump’s staff used THE FUCKING SITUATION ROOM TO DISCUSS THE EPSTEIN COVER UP. And I did an all-caps there because it’s all anyone should be talking about. Watergate looks like the proverbial Nothingburger by comparison, FFS.
Finally, I’m still never giving up on getting my book deal, because I’m me. And because you’re you, and you’ve read this far, I’d love it if you’d get a copy of The Sound of Settling! And please share the link, because everyone deserves a fun, sexy, beach read escape, even if you can’t get to the beach.
Hang in there, my friends. We’ve got this.