7d ago
Sixty now. Periods stopped eight years ago and I still pop up in threads about sleep and joint pain and brain fog and I do sometimes wonder if people think I should have moved on by now. I haven't. And I don't think that's a failure. What I wanted to say to anyone earlier in this, the women who are exhausted and frightened and convinced it never ends, is that it does shift. Not in a straight line and not on anyone else's timetable, but it shifts. I remember being 52 and genuinely not recognising myself. Couldn't sleep past 3am for months. Couldn't string a sentence together at work. Cried in a Waitrose car park over nothing. I thought that was just going to be the rest of my life. It wasn't. What helped me, for what it's worth, was nothing dramatic. I started lifting weights at 56, just a class at the leisure centre, thought I'd hate it and actually loved it. I eat the same breakfast most mornings because decision fatigue is real and I need that one thing to be simple. And I finally went back to my GP last year with a proper list of what was still bothering me, because I'd been quietly assuming I should just get on with it. Still learning. Still tired some mornings. But I'm here and I'm glad this room exists for all of it, not just the early bit. x