I am very tired. All last night, menopausal hot flashes surged with the fury of Hades –waking me with hot sweat, and then chilling me cold. After a decade of being on HRT for unexplained ovarian failure, I am finally coming off to the delight of my intellect which hates being on meds, and to the distress of my body which is clearly in flux. Hot cold, Hot cold, hot cold, the hormonal coursing has recently become so intense that when it hits, it feels like the whoosh of a too-high roller coaster, circling on a too short circuit. I now take all the recommended herbal supplements, but I am still waiting for their purported calming to take effect. In the meantime, my needed daily caloric intake continues to diminish. One would think that these violent rushes of hot and cold would be burning calories like they were coal in a steam engine. Alas, I now seem to need no more than a few scraps of food pre-exercise, otherwise I start gaining weight. I am not amused.
Going through menopause so early has been hard, and not just because of the HRT, my changing body, and my significantly reduced food needs. Menopause has made me feel as if I had lost my youth decades before I was ready. Coupled with all the other death and illness around me, it has made my own death feel closer. It has also meant that I would have no more children. Not that I wanted more children. Still, having their possibility taken away from me so abruptly has made it feel like something vital about myself has also been taken, especially since at the time so much of my self-definition was wrapped up in being a young mother. Unexplained ovarian failure is what really started me writing Landslide. It made me feel that I needed to intellectually explore death and loss before it once again blindsided me.