Menopause is not for sissies...

And here I'd thought I knew what a bad hair day was! (There is a little parakeet - budgie - in that mop.)

Much about my life is no longer -- or perhaps never was (gasp!) -- what I always thought it. Since childhood, I have been obsessed with discovering the Rules, in order to guarantee doing things right, so that life would go my way.

Step A, then Step B, followed by Step C, possibly squared; then, result D. Never mind multiple instances of Step B coming before Step A and Step C requiring quantum math. And discard any times when Steps A, B & C were executed perfectly, but result G happened...

Having reached that universal turning point called menopause (which I never truly believed would happen to me, a redhead, and therefore perfect...) my body is providing me with plenty of time to pause and reconsider what I'm going to be when I grow up.

And why did no one ever tell me that when the hair color starts to go, so do all the super powers? I mean, I'm sure I remember that I used to be a whiz. Why, I was the quintissential Earth Mother!

Now I can't seem to cross the kitchen without being distracted into so many different directions that I can't remember why I went in there in the first place. What happened to multitasking? What happened to that magpie mind full of all sorts of useful information (like where I left my keys and what state I was born in)?

No, today I definitely understand what my educated and heretofore pragmatic mother meant when she used to puzzle us grown kids with the confession that she was spending much more time contemplating the hereafter. It is especially clear to me when, upon rushing back to the bedroom, I pause midstep to wonder, "What am I here after?"

So, what, exactly, AM I here after?

Maybe that is a better question for today than what I will be when I grow up, especially since that one has never been satisfactorily resolved....