I’ve been having a bit of a tricky
time lately. I’ve been going through
something called the ‘menopause’. Ladies over a certain age will know what this
is. It’s more confusing for the men, as although menopause has the word ‘men’
in it, it’s not actually anything to do with them. Whether it’s caused by them
is another story.
I don’t want to ‘mansplain’ the
menopause to my male readers, but feel free to read on to find out the fabulous
symptoms you’re missing.
Symptom no. 1 involves water, a
lot of it. On your body. In the form of sweat. Your body is covered in a fine
film of water, giving a beautiful glistening effect. When you’re age 25. By the
age of 50, the glistening diminishes somewhat as the water gets caught in attractive
skin folds, which doesn’t give quite the same sparkly result. Water may appear
sporadically, or if you’re one of the chosen ones - constantly.
I myself am lucky to fall into
the ‘walking through a constant puddle of sweat’ group. My trick is to carry a 40”
gale force fan with me wherever I go, keeping it 3 inches from my face on full
power. No one seems to notice.
Symptom no. 2 is gaining weight.
Unfortunately, this happened to me when I hit 30. Something to do with eating
too much. I now realise I must have had
an exceptionally early menopause to have gained so much weight in a rather
impressive record time. According to excellent research by ‘Yes, you’re fat, it’s
the menopause.com’, anything you eat will now turn into several tyres around
your midriff. This applies to Ben & Jerry’s, cake and Cadburys Dairy Milk. I’m
not sure about other foods as I don’t eat them.
Symptom no. 3 is experiencing extremely
vivid dreams or insomnia. But not at the same time. You will find yourself either
staring longingly at your blissfully sleeping partner imagining all the
terrible things you could do to them, or vividly dreaming about the
terrible things you could do to them. The dreams are so intense that it can
sometimes be hard to distinguish between what’s reality and what’s not. Which
you can use as your defence in court.
According to recent research by ‘You’re
mad, deal with it, t’s the menopause.com’ if you cause harm to your partner
during the night, it’s pardonable menopausal behaviour, as they are the one
that caused it in the first place by having the ability to sleep soundly.
Symptom no. 4 is headaches. I
never suffered a headache until I was 47. But seeing as I have now had one
every day for the past two years, I’ve made up for it. According to superb research
by ‘Think that’s a headache! Try the menopause.com’, these headaches are
designed by Mother Nature to be worse than labour pains. This is intended to
make you feel grateful that you’re not young enough to have labour pains
anymore. Clever Mother Nature.
Symptom no. 5 is weeping
uncontrollably. This is perfectly acceptable if you are watching ‘Beaches’ for
the 17th time (spoiler, she dies, it’s unbearable), but do try to
curb the hysterical sobbing if you are in a work meeting, and the CEO has just
told you that revenue is down this month.
Symptom no. 6 - you will be tired
all the time. This could be because you have gained 17 stone and are
putting enormous stress on your heart. Or it could just be because you’re lazy.
Either way, don’t fight it – sleep is good, unless you have insomnia (see
symptom number 3) and then………..oh - that’s why I’m tired all the time.
Symptom no. 7 involves losing
your memory / concentration / mind. Losing your memory is fun, you now have an
excuse why you ‘forgot’ all those things you couldn’t be bothered to remember
in the first place.
Losing your concentration is less
fun, especially when you tell your boss you are 100% certain you sent her that
email yesterday, only to find that you are 100% certain you didn’t, when you
find it still in your outbox three days later.
Losing your mind is a bit more
serious, but it’s usually your kids that have taken it.
Finally, symptom no. 8 involves
binge watching Netflix and sitting on the couch.
This is normal. Do not resist.
