Reading right now.

I have just started reading Germaine Greer's book - The Change: Women, Ageing and Menopause.  I am on page 18.  I love her.

The short cut taken...

I have had my hair cut really short!  Twice, in fact, because the first hairdresser was too scared to do what I wanted, so I let her compromise, but within the week I went to another salon and got the job finished.
I think I love it.
Sometimes though, I see myself in the mirror and blink - who is that?  For most of my life, with the exception of one or two short lived incidents, (probably in the 1980s)  I have always worn it halfway down my back with a centre parting and a fringe.  I always said I wanted to have very long silver hair done in braids, and I still may do that.  I was getting annoyed with it though, mainly because of the colour - a combination of white and pewter for almost half the length and the original reddish brown the rest of the way, and also I felt a real deep need for a change. That is what this stage is all about, after all.
Once I had decided, I could not settle until the deed was done - and, despite the false start, I am happy with it.  sometimes I think I look older, and other times I look like my first school photo, taken when I was around 4.5.  A  strange and wonderful combination of maiden and crone.  So it is quite liberating, in a sense.  Anyone who has not been passionately addicted to long hair may not understand.  Before, if I deviated from my normal hairstyle, I immediately started to grow it back - I 'missed' my face.  This time, I feel free of that -my face is my own and seems to be timeless. I feel lighter now that I no longer have that heavy curtain to keep pulling back.  I can look the world in the eye, without peering through the veil.  All those clichés seem just right for how I am feeling about this particular change right now, and if I fancy those silver braids later on, well I can change again.

Going with or without the flow.

So, after 60 days, I have the merest suggestion of a bleed.  For the last 3 days I have been bone tired,  clumsy and generally going around in a dwam, as we Scots would say.  I have also had a big decluttering urge - all of these are big pre-menstrual markers for me.  The decluttering part is always temporary, sadly, and never gets beyond the complaining about the mess stage. I have had this feeling a couple of times since my last period at the beginning of March, but it has come to nothing - in terms of  bleeding or space clearing. Today I have some light spotting, but I remain unconvinced as yet.
I miss it more than I thought I would.  I have always had a reassuringly regular period, and I am feeling the loss of that few days of inwardness - it is like an old friend who has suddenly drawn away from my life..  Strange, since I was recently bemoaning the fact that I was menstruating every two weeks.  Still, as the song says...
I certainly don't think my periods have stopped completely just yet.  I know that it is a decline in my progesterone levels, and I may have erratic cycles for a while, but it is in no way abnormal. I am happy really to go with or without the flow, whatever it is.
I have been doing a lot of reading (again), but mostly mainstream stuff this time.  I felt I should look at all aspects of the modern menopausal 'experience'.  Some of it is quite disturbing misogynist pieces of hegemony and the majority of it is pro- HRT. I hope to post about this later, once I have stopped stamping my feet and thought about it objectively.  I just realised the other day, however, that I have had no dreams at all since I started to read these reductionist texts.  I do think that is significant, (although readers may breathe a sigh of relief that there are no pending dream analysis posts in the foreseeable future) - the ancient wisdom does seem to reach down into the psyche and bring out collective truths.