Things Nobody Warned You About Menopause, In Ascending Order of Rage

Mildly inconvenient

• You now own a fan for every room, and you have opinions about each one.
• Sleep is a two-hour appointment that starts at 4 a.m.
• The word you need is gone. You will get it back on Thursday.
• You have become a person who checks the thermostat like it owes you money.
• Your body reacts to one glass of wine the way it used to react to five.

Genuinely annoying

• Every symptom is apparently also 'just stress.'
• The internet's advice is soy, yoga, and gratitude journaling.
• You cried at a commercial and then got mad about crying.
• Everything is now labeled as being for 'mature skin,' which is a choice.
• Your jeans fit differently and nothing about your habits changed.

Fully justified rage

• You waited eleven minutes to be told to lose weight and come back in a year.
• Nobody in your entire life told you brain fog was a symptom, and you spent a year privately terrified.
• You have been managing other people's comfort since roughly age twelve.
• You are expected to be pleasant about all of it.
• The pamphlet woman is still on the paddleboard.

The part that's actually good

Somewhere in the middle of all that, the part of you that used to apologize for taking up space quietly retires. That's not a symptom. That's the upgrade.

You stop auditioning. You start saying the thing at the table. It's inconvenient for everyone who preferred the old arrangement, and it is the best thing that has happened to you in a decade.