Now, let me start with saying I never want to be fourteen again. As many sleepless nights as I have filled with hot flashes and hormonal headaches, nothing will make fourteen sound like a place I want to be. I am currently the observer of my own fourteen year old daughter’s world and I am consistently struck by what a cold, confusing, heartbreakingly vulnerable place it can be. I watch from the sidelines as another sleepover occurs without an invite but with a barrage of late night snapchat “streaks” that remind my daughter she didn’t make the cut. I sit in the stands and watch the clique rear ..read more

As the conversation around perimenopause and menopause becomes more commonplace, it seems that so do products geared specifically towards women in midlife. I tend to be skeptical about all the items that I have seen pop-up and have tried some myself. Better Not Younger was a product I tried last year. Toted as the “hair whisperers who create products for the accomplished woman in her 40s and beyond.” And created for “The woman whose skin and hair may have changed, but whose confidence, style, and sense of self get better every day.” Hmmm…. great marketing. I took the bait. I had the shampoo an ..read more

Hot flashes. WTH? I am getting AARP material in the mail like my high school senior gets marketing from colleges, but where is the brochure that says “welcome to being a woman in midlife, here are a few things you can expect…” We need a “what to expect” book for perimenopause. What to expect when your perimenopausal. Now that’s one worth an Audible credit. No one tells you what to expect in midlife. This may be partly due to a culture that just doesn’t value middle aged women and still treats menopause and everything related to it as something that should trigger shame and embarrassment (and t ..read more

On the 1st day of perimenopause, my body gave to me one missed period On the 2nd day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 2 saggy boobs On the 3rd day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 3 sleepless hours On the 4th day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 4 new chin hairs On the 5th day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 5 distracting hot flashes On the 6th day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 6 memory lapses On the 7th day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 7 leaks of my bladder On the 8th day of perimenopause, my body gave to me 8 newly lost hairs On the 9th day of perimenopause, m ..read more

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average age for a first time mom in the US is 28. From 2000 to 2014, the proportion of first births to women aged 30 to 34 increased 28 percent, and those among women over age 35 went up 23 percent. I had my first child when I was 31 and my second when I was 35 – this puts us smack dab in the puberty/perimenopause swirling vortex of emotional and physical upheaval. As Erma Bombeck so aptly put it: “I’m trying very hard to understand this generation. They have adjusted the timetable for childbearing so that menopause and teaching ..read more

As we are experiencing midlife at the end of this decade (my God, wasn’t it just 1986?!), many of us are in full stride: settled into our lives, watching our kids grow and perhaps move on, maybe caring for parents whose health may be declining and feeling very, well, adult. In the midst of all this midlife activity, we often overlook taking care of and looking out for ourselves not only daily but overall. While a good night’s sleep and a meal not gotten from a window and eaten out of a bag may be great steps in the right direction for being a more productive human being tomorrow, there are als ..read more

 Choose a Healthy Diet Ok, I know you know and you know I know you know, but it’s bears repeating because it’s just so important.  Eating well helps with all our aging parts. Midlife is the time to take stock of your diet and pinpoint any deficiencies, this is also the time to do a scan of your daily diet.  Is there an abundance of sugar or fried foods, or maybe just a lack of a variety of vegetables?  If so, now is the time to try and incorporate more produce diversity, healthy protein and whole foods into your diet.  According to current dietary guidelines, our cal ..read more

Recently, I went to a wedding. It was the first time that I celebrated one of my friend’s own children getting married. Up until this point I had only been to weddings because I knew the bride or the groom. This time, while I knew the bride, I was there for her mother. We had been close in high school, but she met her husband shortly after graduation and we both went to different colleges. I then went in the Peace Corps shortly after she married and was not there for the birth of her daughter, the now beautiful bride. However, we always stayed close; while I moved around she chose to stay in t ..read more

As kids we are told and sold stories of adventure, love and romance with the same ending: they lived happily ever after. So we rush through our own stories with no doubt in our minds that we too will live happily ever after. Then we don’t and we are crushed. Or we do actually get it but our expectation of it was so high that the real happy ever after is dull and matte in comparison to the constant joy and songbird serenade we were promised. We feel like we were cheated and sold some knockoff version of the real deal. In midlife, many of us find ourselves smack dab in the middle of happily and ..read more

The more I learn and research about midlife, the more surprised I am that we still keep think we are the only ones going through this. While what we go through is very personal, we are not the first ones, and won’t be the last, to experience the absolute panic, anxiety and even depression that midlife can bring not to mention the physical symptoms that can take us hostage and turn us into someone we ourselves don’t understand. Here are 3 things that are shocking about falling apart in midlife: The oldest members of the Millennials (of Gen Y) generational group are now 38. This means they will ..read more