Entry 4. August 2021.

Ageing is a humbling process in many ways. Simply trying to write this blog post, for example, i have written, deleted, rewritten passages of varying degrees of vulnerability, asking myself what i am willing to share with whomever reads this post.

I want to talk about weight, how it stays and grows on my body. How i walk each day and eat healthy and still am robust in size. How i want to embrace and love all parts of myself, including my size (regardless of my size), and sometimes i do, until i look in the mirror and then am disappointed. How i shifted my goals from losing weight to having strength and mobility and wondering if that is a cop out. How i am still young’ish and healthy and full of life, but embarrassed about how i look in clothes. How i want to be a better example for my daughters and granddaughter by having better image of myself, but don’t and i don’t think i ever have. How i want to avoid people i knew back when so that they don’t see how large i’ve grown. Ughhh, why at this stage am i even thinking of these things?

I want to talk about my changing period. And how painful and long it has become over the past few years, since entering this stage of perimenopause. Each time it ends, it feels like it is coming again, with painful cramps during and between. I understand from doctors and menopause books what is happening in my body. But this knowing doesn’t ease the discomfort of the changes, only helps me to understand them.

I want to talk about the night sweats, the need for a stronger prescription of eye glasses, the brain fog and the shifting tolerance of foods once loved. But it feels like in between the complaints and sarcastic chuckles about these changes, i want to also acknowledge the privilege that comes with this process. The blessing of wisdoms born from a life that has allowed me to learn from my mistakes and those of others. I have worked hard in my life and am still young enough, and am of sound mind, body and spirit to witness and experience the fruits of this labor.

Sometimes the feelings that arise about the changes happening in my body obfuscate the important messages they carry about change, how constant it is, how uncomfortable it can be at times and how utterly necessary it is in this journey called life. And then i remember. I remember and i give thanks.