TARYN THOMSON
I don’t want to talk about menopause. I want to talk about sex.
And not that perfunctory been-there-done-that-twelve-or-thirteen-quick-thrusts-before-sleep sex.
I want to talk about sex that makes vases on bedside tables crash and ooze water all over my library books. I want to talk about the kind of sex that makes me flush all over when I remember it, calling the encounter to mind often, days and days after. I want to talk about the kind of sex where I find myself on the floor and wonder “how did that happen?” as I breathe heavily in the sticky, dreamy luxury of post-Olympic coitus.
Correction.
I don’t want to talk about this kind of sex. I want to have this kind of sex. Regularly. So I don’t want to talk about menopause. Not now. Not ever.
Menopause — with its hot flashes and mood swings and vaginal dryness and spotting — Jesus. Haven’t we been through enough? We’ve tackled PMS. We’ve given birth. We’ve had D and C’s. We’ve allowed the regular pap smears. We have taken birth control pills that gave us headaches and blood clots. We have suffered through condoms and gels and foams that, it turns out, we are allergic to, so they burned us something awful. We have had abortions and miscarriages. Christ. We, and our entire female package, have gone the fucking distance.
I don’t want to talk about menopause. Not now.
I am only just hitting my stride.
Being divorced, I get to try out new lovers periodically and each lover is another uncharted field to navigate. I am getting more and more experimental, more playful and hungry. And the wonderful thing about loving in my forties is my hang-ups are pretty much dealt with. I accept I have a belly and lines around my eyes and places on my body that jiggle as I walk away from him to go to the washroom. I also know I am a hot number.
Midlife crisis is a term we use to describe people who refuse to surrender. What is so wrong with still wanting adventure? With wanting more adventure than ever? With putting up a bit of a fight? I am in my mid-forties. I am not about to fucking slow down. I am just getting started.
Look, we have steered these bodies through a lot: through our twenties when we didn’t know what we wanted or how to ask for it; through our thirties where we were primarily milking/mothering machines; into our forties where finally, finally we walk tall and know enough to stride away from things that don’t serve us and confidently ask for what we actually need. True, we bear the marks of the journey. We are not as smooth as we once were. Our bodies have stretch marks and rolls and lines and squishy bits, but we have brought them through one hell of a tsunami and now we are strong enough and old enough, by God, to do what we like with them.
I don’t have a problem with reality. I will get older and my body will fail and my looks will no longer be there and I will die. This is natural.
However, don’t make me talk about menopause. I don’t want to embrace it. I don’t want to accept it. I want to fight it and I will. I plan to fuck my way right through my geriatric years.
Menopause. Jesus.
I am not going to talk about that.