It's getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes

     There are certain monumental firsts in a woman's life: first big promotion, first child, first plot to kill your mother-in-law. However, as the 50th birthday looms in the not too distant future, we get to add one more to our list of firsts: Hot flashes.

     The onset of menopause is dramatic enough; adding these hormonal volcanos is torture surpassed only by The Red Room in Fifty Shades of Grey" . Seriously, is it too much to ask Nature for a little pat on the back for, oh, I don't know...maybe giving birth to the next generation of human kind to rule the Earth?  If absolutely nothing else, couldn't we have a 15 minute warning before we internally combust? Just enough time to get our loved ones into a fall-out shelter before the deadly forces of estrogen and progesterone collide and create a furious emotional tornado. Any casualties of said maelstrom will only lead to feelings of overwhelming guilt, which will lead to another hot flash, etc., the vicious cycle never ending. Oh, the idea is exhausting...

     The text book, Essentials of Human Diseases and Conditions, states that menopause is " [a] temporary condition . . . .and the prognosis is generally good."  But, if you're the woman who falls shy of generally good? Stay away from your mother-in-law.

    

    

    

    

    

    

  

Happy Birthday

Its been said that turning 50 is a rite of passage, a coming of age. According to countless therapists, yoga gurus and cyber-psychics, this is the age when a woman reached the pinnacle of her beauty. She is confident, comfortable in her own skin. She accepts, even celebrates the lines surrounding her eyes and mouth. They are a testament of a life well lived. She sheds her inhibitions like her clothes, running naked along a moonlit beach or through the grocery store without a care in the world.

I'd like to know who is responsible for creating this myth. It reeks of Oprah-ism, but I'm certain that Oprah wouldn't endorse 50 yr old naked women to streak through the frozen food aisle--unless she's suffering from a hot flash. Therefore, the perpetrator of this rumor must be a man. A very desperate man in search of nookie. Who else would want to see half century old T & A? 

Welcome to the Golden Age.