Nothing says middle age like a hot flash

Never Done: Had a hot flash, I think

I walked over to Zeva's for Mussar group, with a couple detours to run errands at the bank and the library; probably altogether I spent an hour outside in the clear cold weather, completely warm in my long down coat. When I arrived to Zeva's, it was extremely hot in the apartment. I peeled off my coat and hat, and sat down to talk with her. After about 10 minutes, I noticed that I was dripping sweat. I didn't pay much attention to it because I was in the middle of a conversation, but then I realized that this was more than just the hot apartment; this was a hot flash.

I'm not sure what else there is to say about this except that if that was a hot flash, it wasn't so bad. Ask me how I feel about them in about ten years.

I was going to be flippant and end the post there, but the truth is that this is the very reason I have embarked on this year-long Never Done project and the very reason I am writing this blog. Because nothing says "You're middle-aged" like peri-menopause. As I approach 50 (but first I have to approach 48) I want to have a bigger, expansive life -- not a smaller, diminished one. But I also want to be honest with myself and open with others about what it actually feels like to be this age. For someone like me, who wanted to but never did have a child, it is sobering to feel the biological door closing.

At the same time, my hope is that by the end of a year of trying -- or noticing -- new things every day, that I will have opened many other doors, and discovered which ones I want to walk through, and which worlds I want to enter and live in. A quarter of the way through the year, I am already living a more expansive life, and already discovering what I want to keep permanently (singing, spinning, sewing, soup swap.) (I didn't actually just choose all "s" words -- those were the first four things that came to mind.)

I'm looking forward to the rest of the year, and the rest of my life.