Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of women and nonbinary writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find in this column, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.
For weeks now, I’ve woken up at exactly 4 a.m., covered in sweat. I sit up with dread, throw the cat off my face and take off my hot, sticky T-shirt. I get up to adjust the air conditioning and crawl back into bed. Sometimes I stumble to the kitchen for a glass of water, stepping over the dog, who heaves a deep sigh.
The other day I was having coffee with a friend when, all of a sudden, I felt the heat rising up through my body, making me squirm and wipe the sweat from my face with my napkin. She’s over 50, like me, so she knew exactly what was happening. About two years ago, I stopped having my period and rejoiced in my freedom from that decades-long inconvenience. It would be smooth sailing from here on out, I thought. How wrong I was. Now I would give anything to have it back.
I am no fun to be around. I’m constantly tired and grumpy, and I don’t have anything to wear because of the weight I’ve gained over the past year. This keeps me from going out to see friends — or being intimate with my husband — both of which only make me feel worse. If only someone had warned me I would feel this way at this point in my life, I might not feel so blindsided.
Like so many aspects of women’s health, we don’t talk about menopause. All too often we suffer in silence. Even doctors have very little to say about the natural process every woman will go through at some point in her life.
I realize there are a few good things about turning 50, like not needing anyone’s approval and not caring much what people think of me. But mostly, it has been a steady spiraling down of my physical, mental and emotional health. I know that I, like so many women, have internalized our culture’s obsession with youth and the denigration of aging women. After a certain age, we tend to disappear, estranged from social life — and in my case, from myself. I haven’t felt like myself in years.
But still I try to pretend I have some control over the distressing symptoms that come with the departure of estrogen from my body. For example, I decided to embrace my gray hair and quit dyeing it during the pandemic. Of course, it helped that I couldn’t go to the salon for more than a year, but when I could go back, I decided it was not worth it. Unlike Nora Ephron, who advised women to start disguising their wrinkly necks at the age of 43, I’d had it with spending thousands of dollars a year trying to hide my age. What helped me was the #grayhair movement on Instagram — communities of women dedicated to helping each other through this process — and an amazing hairstylist.
One unexpected aspect of this phase of life is that my almost-teenage daughter is going through a similar stage as her childhood body is transforming to one of an adult. We are navigating the unfamiliar, awkward and sometimes painful transition together. We are both at a crossroads: She can see her life stretching ahead of her, full of promise, needing me less and less — as I contemplate the time I have left.
On one particularly difficult morning when I dropped her off at school, she got out of the car without even saying goodbye. I sobbed for most of the way home. I feel a profound sense of loss — the loss of youth, my energy, my body and, most importantly, the child I have loved more than anything in the world for the past 12 years.
While the days of spending large swaths of uninterrupted time together are over, I cherish the times we still spend together curled up on the couch watching reruns of Gilmore Girls, or shopping at Target for clothes that don’t fit our changing bodies.
Despite all of the challenges of the past few years, I am trying to embrace aging without the negative self-talk that has plagued me for most of my life. It’s about time I looked at myself in the mirror — gray hair, sweaty face and all — and learned to love what I see. There is immense pleasure in watching my daughter blossom into a beautiful and confident young woman. Why can’t the same be said for my own transformation into a carefree, older — but still beautiful — version of myself?
