This is me, about twelve years ago when I naturally produced collagen, had my shit together quite nicely thank you very much. My body didn’t ache, I could stay up until 11pm at night, sleep soundly, wake refreshed and get on with it. Happy times. Good days.
I look at Mums now with little babies in prams and think two things.
- Why are you so young?
- How can you do two things at once?
Doing more than one thing at a time used to be my superpower and sadly, along with my sex drive, my optimism, my tolerance of feckless politicians, my ability to produce and sustain a healthy hormonal balance and my occasional will to live, IT HAS LEFT THE BUILDING!
Like, fucking ran away and never looked back.
I look at that fresh-faced Mrs Woog up there and she could do many things at once. She could breastfeed a baby while bathing a toddler while speaking on the phone to a colleague, all the while as she tended to her bonsai tree. She would never get overwhelmed (fast forward about 6 years later when she joined Club Anxiety and the whole game changed) and was proficient in organisation, prioritising and delegation.
The loss of my superpower has been a gradual undertaking and one that I really have only recently formally recognised. I used to be able to write away and have a full conversation with a family member, an intelligent one including eye contact. It was if I was able to function on two operating platforms.
Nowdays, I am lucky enough to boot up at all. I actually start thinking about my second coffee as I make my first.
Do you know when you run into a mate who you have known for years and their name just totally escapes you? When you type a word you might have written a thousand times beforehand spend twenty minutes looking at it, questioning whether you have spelt it correctly? When you walk into Bunnings to get some fertiliser and come out with a maidenhair fern? When you get a text from a friend asking you if you are running late for coffee, but you are actually in your PJ’s with your head completely up your ass?
Its brain fog, a totally accepted symptom of peri-menopause. And I know because it is coming at me like a freight train.
But there are things you can do to offset it. Brain exercises. But that sounds like, to use a word from my offsprings’ vernacular, that sounds like a “trek”. Which is another form of exercise that I will try to avoid.
Collagen, reasonable mood levels and cognitive function WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?
How is your mind behaving? Sharp as a tack?
