Two weeks on
It had been a fortnight since the Dreadfuls had been elected out of government and Madge had woken with a sense of wonderment. How had a country been run into the ground so badly and how was it going to be rebuilt? It was of course a huge issue and she didn’t want to imagine she could provide any answers but she was curious. Did people still feel that the country could ‘go back’ to normal? How does one describe normal?
It was the usual thing of waking up after a somewhat disrupted night, with a head full of questions. the first question being, ‘how long does menopause actually last?’ It was another of those impossible to answer questions because it was entirely personal to each woman. Her physiology, her lifestyle, her family history. All combine somewhere between the 4th and 5th decades of life to transform a woman from one state to another. Maiden to Mother to Crone. The three stages apparently.
Madge felt she hadn’t even realised she was in the first two states of being young until they passed. Then suddenly, two years previously, she had been catapulted into the world of ‘the change’. Menopause. The word didn’t do justice to the reality. It felt like the epitome of not ‘going back to normal.’ She didn’t want to scare people though, especially younger women in her life. They had already started to look a bit concerned when she spoke of just how radically different she felt and indeed, sometimes looked. Scare-hair and heat flushes did not constitute a carefully cultivated look of cool. Madge sighed. She no longer cared about looking cool and in the middle of the night, felt she would offer a kidney for some cool. Not literally of course.
We really can’t imagine getting older can we she thought. The day before, the lovely anniversary of Jumping the Broom with her late beloved, Madge had been visited by two young woman who lived locally. Now 20, one of the youngsters had moved into the area with her parents some two years previously. She had been a ‘troubled teen’ who had periodically needed an extra pair of ears to listen to the troubles and who often forgot her door keys and needed to pick up the spares. She was a sweetheart with a harsh view and Madge had been glad to be the extra ears. It was important to listen. She could see the youngster had softened. Nice to see.
What Madge now noticed was that since menopause, she simply didn’t have the same patience or perspective. She still found young people interesting in their self interestedness and she could see just how much of her own youth was spent being preoccupied with what was essentially nonsense. This was what Madge was now sitting with. Is youth there to be wasted? Is that the actual beauty of being young? You simply can’t imagine you’ll ever be old. It was good to tread the line of hope and Madge would not have wanted to know that this was how she would feel some days when she got older. Yet, there was a niggly part that still wished she had known that the bounce and ease of being young would in fact ebb away. Would she have made more use of it if she had known? Does anyway really realise?
It was the age old thing she thought. They do say that youth is wasted on the young. She smiled. So is good advice. No one ever really listens when we are young…we have to find out ourselves and that was the whole point and joy of life in Madge’s view. To explore and discover, to make what feel like mistakes only to find out years later that this was exactly what we were meant to be doing. This was the conversation that Madge had been having with one of the Petites as they were called. The children of the woman who was as a daughter to Madge. A gaggle of youngsters who were now all nearly grown, facing a world that offered no guarantees. It never had.
Madge had sat with the 18 year old who was on the cusp of starting university. Full of excitement and terror at what she might have to do, who she might meet, whether she would manage it all, what if , what if, what if. All the usuals that we have all been through and yet, before you’ve been through it, you can’t imagine how it’ll work. That’s life really isn’t it, Madge had said to the youngster. You give it a go, sometimes it works, sometimes not, you have to cry, talk about it, cry a bit more, laugh at the ridiculousness, take a breath and keep it moving. Whatever it is. It was a lesson for all of us, whatever our age and Madge felt grateful that at least she didn’t have all of those insecurities that come with youth. On the other hand, she’d love some of that youthful bounce. Who wouldn’t?
She thought about the day ahead and the people she would see. Osteopath, close friends, young ones in the tribe. All booked in before midday. Lovely. She still wasn’t reading the papers or listening to the news and it had been like a fortnight’s holiday. A good way to start the weekend. It was also good to give her friends the heads up that Madge would be taking a few days off from writing but would be very happy to hear from those who wanted to share their own thoughts. Morning or evening. Meantime, it was cosmic hugs , hahalala wishes and an early broth. It was hair washing day and that always needed a little extra oomph. Big love. xx