For Different Truths, Devapriya explores the witty, raw mayhem of menopause, where shifting hormones spark a radical journey of self-discovery.
Chopping vegetables has become a challenge for me. My children, my sweet baby boys (both tall, strapping lads with family packs of bulges on their gym-trained arms), have removed sharp objects from the kitchen. I am chopping a cucumber with a nail cutter. The knives and scissors have been kept out of my reach so that I don’t rip off the sofa, the curtains, or the cushions or snip off their SRK-inspired infant ponytails.
The boys are confused. I have been screaming at them for either coming too close to me or for maintaining a safe distance. They are going through an existential crisis because their mother is going through menopause.
My little one initially thought that menopause meant a phase where women stopped dating men for a while. I understand where that came from because he belongs to the generation of ‘situationships’ and ‘benching’. It took him some time to understand that his mother was not making men sit on a bench but hanging from the edge of a cliff, herself.
I have stopped wishing people good morning or good night because, as far as I am concerned, there are only a few hours in between, when the world sleeps, and I think about everything that does and does not concern me. When owls stay up the whole night, they turn wise. I end up with brain fog. The only birthdays that I remember are public holidays, like Gandhi Jayanti. My friend invited me to her art exhibition, and she was so grateful that I made the time to attend, the only missing detail here being that I went just one month too early.
If I do manage to sleep at all, I wake up with hot flushes and break out into a sweat. It is a sauna, served at your doorstep, free of cost. Even if it is at three o’clock in the night, I make it a point to call up each family member to ask if they are feeling hot. Sometimes, I feel a sudden chill, and I have started keeping a thermometer at my bedside. My sons say that I should put the thermometer to check the temperature inside my head.
Of course, I have a zero figure, but just for clarification, it is the digit one, followed by two zeros. As evening dawns, I close the window so that mosquitoes don’t enter and open the Swiggy and Zomato windows on my phone. In fact, I have been looking for a job opening as a food taster. I have signed up for all the major fitness apps, but I have blocked their numbers on my phone because they were all trying to do their jobs well. I don’t think they should have bothered because I had been absent for only a couple of months.
By late evening, my waistline increases by four inches. If the natural gas inside my stomach could have been outsourced, I could have been used as a gas balloon to show tourists around Kolkata. At night, I engage in such intense cross-firing that maybe, next time, the Prime Minister will use me for the surgical strike.
Once upon a time, my hair was like Rapunzel’s, but hair loss does not really bother me because I will be able to make a wig out of my own hair. In fact, on days that I will not be going out, I will rent out the wig. The sad part is that my maids have stolen enough hair from my dustbin. They have made wigs, too.
Acidity is another blessing in disguise. The amount of acid produced in my body has tremendous potential to be patented and used as the next-generation toilet cleaner.
I feel lost either sometimes or all the time. Not lost in the sense that you can use Google Maps to guide you. It is the kind of loss where you reach out for someone. It could be anyone. You can feel a shiver down your spine, and you are anxious every time the mobile rings or you hear the doorbell. The whistle of the pressure cooker makes you want to scream, and every time you look at the mirror, your forehead has a new wrinkle.
To add insult to injury, when you have just thrown the sanitary pads out in the trash can after a no-show of five months, it pops its ugly head out of nowhere, and then all hell breaks loose. It’s like birthing a child again. It is as though all the gods are angry at you, all at once. You can’t get up from bed, but if you do, your head spins like a planet without an axis. It is so much like being pregnant once again, all that craving for anything sweet.
It is the price of being able to bear children. Everything comes at a cost. Women pay their price in hormones. Your hormones behave like the stock market. The stress squeezes a bitter lemonade out of all the lemons that life throws at you.
Currently, I have five new best friends and one worst enemy. My best pals are the four walls of my bedroom. They never let me down. On days that I do manage to take a bath and end up feeling like a World War II survivor, my bed and my walls embrace me with open arms. They give me plenty of silent reasons for not going on a walk or not rustling up an interesting snack for the boys. My worst enemy is the mirror. It is a shameless liar. It throws bombs at me. These bombs are in the shape of alphabets. M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL. Like a student who doubts the examiner after receiving his report card, I too feel that the glass in my dressing table has been put up by conspirators who are playing mind games with me.
I have become unsociable to the point of almost being antisocial. I have started killing people, albeit metaphorically. In the past two years, I have turned down at least a couple of dozen invitations by conjuring up fictional uncles and aunts-in-law and giving them the most grotesque deaths.
Occasionally, I do go out to meet friends. There are things that we need to discuss. Earlier, it would all be about our children, husbands, clothes, jewellery and mothers-in-law. It would sound something like, “What is Akash doing now?” or “Are you planning to change Divyanshi’s school?” Now, it is more on the lines of, “How’s your calcium doing?” or “Did your magnesium finally arrive?” “You know, sodium potassium has just become uncontrollable.” Anybody listening to us would assume that we have named our children after minerals.
We have all tried binge-eating, therapy, yoga and ridiculously expensive retreats. The only thing that has worked for us all is the window on the phone that you open after midnight and pick out the things that please your eyes, and you add them to your cart. It is the online window-shopping therapy or, as I call it, the ‘add-to-cart therapy’. It gives you a strange sort of satisfaction. Of owning a wee part of a thing that isn’t actually yours. You can just pretend to have it, and that’s just about enough to make you happy.
However, it’s not all that bad after all. This is the age when you can wish your children’s friends well, saying, “All my blessings for you, ‘beta’.” Though of course, your magnanimity means nothing to them. They expect vouchers, headphones or smartwatches. Also, you have come to that age when you can scream at anyone and get away with it because you are never at fault; your hormones are. It is almost like your second teenage phase. You can finally tell your mother-in-law that you are prettier than her daughter. You can buy that pair of shorts and show the world the pair of legs that your husband never wanted the world to see. You can buy a pass to a concert and scream your lungs out because nobody will listen, and you can dance like no one’s watching at a New Year’s Eve party because trust me, no one will actually look at you. Nobody cares.
Now, that is the point. You know that nobody cares about you, so you finally stop caring. You don’t feel the compulsion to please anyone anymore. Life gives you a second chance. Maybe menopause is all about making life simpler and being a little less hard on yourself. You can buy a ticket to nowhere and sit staring at the mountains doing nothing and feeling nothing. You can surrender to Nature and allow it to heal you. Some of your wounds show, some don’t. It has taken you years to become the wreck that you are, so it will take you a long time to heal. Give yourself that time. Learn not to return the calls or answer the text messages. If you are fortunate enough to still have your parents around you, be with them. They are the best healers.
I think the most important lesson that menopause teaches you is to pause. It gives you a moment to breathe and take stock of things. It is a hard taskmaster, but it does teach you that, after all, you are the priority. You are the starting point of human rights. Self-love is not a sin. Rather, those who have failed to love you are sinners. Once you get the message, you wish you had realised the truth sooner.
So girls, unplug yourselves and go back to being wild. Pierce your nose, lip, eyebrow, or whatever; get that pixie cut; streak your hair; and show off your abundant curves. They will slut-shame you anyway. Say ‘yes’ to whatever makes you happy and ‘no’ to whatever doesn’t, and stop giving excuses. You are not answerable anymore. Cook yourself a meal, indulge in the unlimited buffet, go to the spa, or even swipe right on Tinder. Dig up all the dust that has gathered in the coffin where you have buried your talents. Unleash yourself. If anybody tries to stop you, delete them from your life. If they don’t value you yet, chances are that they never will.
There are menopause support groups in India. You can always reach out. Just make sure to make the best use of the second chance you are getting. Once you start feeling better, walk out into the world with proud strides. Let everyone see the new version of you, which will undoubtedly be the best. Let the world know what they have been missing all along.
Picture design by Anumita Roy
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