As a writer, revision is my middle name. I revise, almost, until the cows come home.
But what about as a menopausal woman?
Do I need to turn myself into ice cream?
Or should I just be happy with spilled milk, no crying allowed?
Cliff, my husband the engineer, goes into semi-heart failure if he spills anything. A splash of pickle juice. A dollop of coffee grounds.
The cries from the kitchen make me think the stove has caught fire, again, or the refrigerator is emitting poisonous gas.
To me, a spill isn’t such a big deal, unless it ruins a silk blouse or my daughter’s hard-earned diploma.
And so perhaps it should be with our bodies. Our houses. Our goals. Our disappointments.
Maybe we simply need to chill and embrace the spill.
I have a friend who’s in graduate school while working a full-time job. On top of that, she’s planning a wedding. The other day she said, “I think, in terms of my grades in grad school, I just need to lower my standards a bit.”
I’ve thought the same thing about me.
That, as a woman of a certain age, I can lower my standards and quit fretting about revising my very own self. (Although I’m not going to give up on my Wedding Arms, at least not yet.)
What about you?
Did The Great Pause put you into more accepting pastures?
Are you learning to embrace the spill?
Read more from Barbara Younger on her blog, Friend for the Ride
Barbara Younger
Barbara Younger's blog, A Friend for the Ride: Encouraging Words for the Menopause Roller Coaster, takes an upbeat look at menopause and midlife. She welcomes guest posts! Shoot her an email at the address on her "About the Blog and Me" page. The author of over twenty books for adults and children, Barbara holds an a MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Barbara lives in a 180-year-old house in the small town of Hillsborough, North Carolina with her husband Cliff and collections of everything from dolls to Golden Books to butter boxes. She's the mother of two grown daughters and grandmother to one adorable baby boy.
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