5 minute read
A brief hiatus from my regular series ‘A Writer’s Life’ but I am a writer and this is my life (cue Eamonn Andrews). In this piece, I talk about women’s ‘stuff’ including periods. Too much for you? Scroll on. No offence taken.
A six word story. I’ve been playing around with these whilst exploring flash fiction. I figured that as well as being a story, it would work as a title too so I’m diving right in.
Have you ever had a mic drop moment? Where no other words can be said? There is no rebuttal, response or possibility of rewinding the situation. I had a mic drop moment a couple of weeks ago. It wasn’t just a mic drop moment though. It wasn’t a simple drop; it was a demolition with reverberation that spread way past the point of impact. The moment expanded and I was left suspended.
I didn’t really understand why what she had said had affected me so much. Ok, let’s be honest. It upset me. It rattled me to my core. It left me feeling hollow.
I had gone to the GP for a routine cervical smear test. Yes ugh, as horrible as it sounds. I could cope with that though. It was when the nurse was collecting information about menstrual cycles. I’d not had a period for well over a year. There is so much conversation around peri menopause and menopause that I felt that I was very clued up and (so far) pretty much symptom free. The general support for women in the UK around this isn’t that great to be honest but woman to woman, I was expecting a gentle approach. Instead I got:
“Well you are post menopausal then.”
A six word sentence. It did register at the time but it didn’t sink in until a few days later.
In that one sentence, I felt my whole life judged. Gavel smashed down. Sentence handed out. Dreams crashed.
My sentence: to forever be viewed as one who had failed. No children, no husband (I divorced him but that’s another story) and no legacy. To make things even worse, I share a house with a cat. I had visions of me in a rocking chair, grey haired, glasses, wearing a hearing aid and surrounded by miaowing felines.
I really struggled rectifying this in my thoughts. Yes at one stage in my life I had wanted children (I really hope all those people who constantly asked me when am I having kids and did I ever want kids, are reading this by the way) but I had changed my mind. I had decided I did not want children and that should be ok, right?
Wrong. So much pressure to conform. Those six words meant it was over for me. No chance of that happening even if I did change my mind. There was a creeping fear though. Not creeping like pretty ivy found in a secret garden, but more like the thorns surrounding Sleeping Beauty’s tower. If I was menopausal, was I now officially old? Is this classed as old? I mean yes, I have grey hairs and I do wear glasses but to be called old. Nope. I was resisting that; I don’t care if the Borg say it’s futile.
And there it was. Realisation. It wasn’t that I feared being considered old. It was shame and embarrassment around the fact that I was being so vain about it. I always used to comment about my mum dying her hair and how she shouldn’t be so vain. Ha! The apple does not fall so far!
You know what I think made it worse? The fact that next year I have one of those birthdays coming up. You know the ones that end in zero. My god-sister told me that on her thirtieth birthday, she lay on her sofa crying and bemoaning the fact that her life wasn’t what she had expected it to be at that point.
Enough now people! These societal expectations of women are crippling; destructive and backward. However that said, this is the society we live in but it is my responsibility to regulate and decide how I respond.
So I am flipping the script. When I went through puberty it was scary but exciting and I knew I was growing up. I had so much to look forward to. This is another change in my life as a woman (I’m a fixed zodiac sign so change brings challenge for me) but it is also a transformation. I get to do things differently, expect different things and if I want to, actually BE different, just by being the authentic me.
Honestly if I managed to navigate all of the changes in my life so far then I clearly have the tools to navigate this one. I might even be sailing towards the smoothest waters of my life. Ones where a gentle warm breeze carries me forward and I don’t have to paddle or row anymore.
The Grey Havens of the Elves, here I come. It’s not the end, it’s a new beginning and I’ll be strutting into it with grace and confidence!
They made it look easy the trees change happens gracefully the energy spent in growth of deep green leaves luscious fruits fades in time the fruit drops the leaves change colour and the trees let it happen no complacency no mourning no gripping or hoarding even when the leaves fall trees shed no tears because they know it’s part of a cycle it has to happen for life to continue for seeds to grow for buds to emerge for nature to repeat they make it look so easy the trees. © 2022 Sarah Elliott Taken from my book Warrior Wisdom Sun - click to order More from me here...
Thanks for this, Sarah. Everyone who reaches this stage in life has a story to tell - 50% of the world population! - yet these stories are almost never told in public. For me the gobsmack moment was when I read an NHS letter referring to me as a ‘nulliparous woman’. I had never wanted kids, but the word still felt like such a negation - as if a woman who hasn’t given birth is lacking, not a real woman. Stay strong and keep writing