Life of a perimenopausal woman

The body is a sacred place. It is a place of love, joy, pleasure, rest, restlessness, anger, anxiety, sadness, pain...of heat, of cold.

My body has been in shambles recently. I had experienced hot flashes when they put me on hormonal therapy after my surgery in 2023, so I had a taste of what it feels like. But who knew the trailer was only the tip of the ice-berg and the real show is much intense? 

I have difficulty writing these days because I cannot remember spellings accurately. During a meeting two weeks ago, my mind shut down. I could not remember the names of my colleagues or of the programs were working on. For a moment, I wished I could just disappear rather than have to make a fool of myself. But the names didn't come back.

There are a dozen other things I currently feel. My skin crawls, my ears ring, I get itchy spots, and I get terrible hot flashes and I break into cold sweats. My body is either on fire or on spikes. And when it gets cold, the night feels freezing. One moment I'm on the verge of burning, another moment, I sweat profusely.

I finally know what was happening to other women my age, when I had seen women wiping themselves off with tissue until the eyeliner smudged and the lipstick smeared across one cheek, or fanning oneself with whatever she could lay her hands on. She was struggling like I struggle now. On some occasions, I feel like my system is shutting down.

Mamu has been talking of these experiences for years now and I didn't even realize how hard this must have been for her.

I missed two periods this year. Last year, I missed one. In a few years, I will be 50 and I hope that the missing of periods will at least be a gradual process until then, instead of being something like hitting the wall.

Perimenopause is lonely and scary. I keep wondering what's going on inside my body. But no one knows. The body is sacred and the body also keeps its own secrets. 

Here's what we need to know.

meltdowns get more frequent

it tends to build up slowly and then breaks into a million little things and then it cracks open and you feel like your brain is about to burst open and then you break into sweat and tears and of course it makes you look pathetic because you will cry and you will end up in distorted expressions, disheveled hair, snot jamming your nose and you wailing like a child and people will just stare at you and wonder why you're behaving as you are and will try to make excuses for you or tell you to shut up, but you don't know how to react to that because something just cracked open inside you and there's no way to shut it down this quickly because closing it takes time and energy, and energy just got spent in crying and sobbing and standing before everyone, making a fool of yourself and becoming the horrible, evil person who cries so easily and weeps over the rearrangement of things, things are just objects, item, non-living things, but things that are important because you have come to rest some comfort in those things being there and so when someone moves them, it stirs feelings of instability and all you can do is cry and know there's no hold over it, and then you come back to it later, feeling guilt and heaviness and shame, wonder if you should run away or stay or run away and never come back, your loved ones will understand or won't, or they will hurt and hate you and all you can do then is to think about them and stay, stay even when you don't want to, stay even when your mind cannot, and then you will Google, show then a link on what an autistic meltdown means, but they think you are being dramatic and besides, the article is too long to read, and so you pick yourself up one more time, like you've done for over fourty-five years of your memory, you carry on, a little less whole than last time, a little more brittle, a little more smaller than ever, the body imitating how the heart feels

We never talk about tight chests

Grief can hold you captive for days and weeks and months, years. 

I feel as though Preeti's passing has now become stuck in my chest. It's always tight. I haven't looked up the phone to check our chats from the past. What is the point in doing that when I know she will no longer be looking? But there's a part of me that seems to think she's still in London. It's also like I'm trying to trick my mind into believing she's not quite gone. Like I had tricked myself into believing she would come back to Kathmandu for good and we would grow old together. But this was not the place she chose for herself.

Home, then, is probably where we're able to spread our wings, even if we don't always fly. Home isn't always where we were born. And so Preeti Didi chose her home-- so far away from us. And every detail about her life, so lost on us. I worry I will never be able to gather all the bits of her to make a full memory. 

Fragments will have to do.

girls standing on the lawn

The spine of the chair shadowing mine, my arms stretched across the desk, my feet dangling before me sometimes, sometimes perched on the floor-- I'm the happiest person when I'm seated at my desk. Nothing else matters while I get to be here.

Until last week, I still had Y's Sanepa desk. And it felt like a special gift. I think I might have walked from room to room admiring Y's apartment and her courage to set up her own place, the entire time I was there. 

I'm yet to find that for myself. But I've taken comfort in knowing it is possible for a Newa girl to step out of her sheltered life and live a life that's her own, even in Kathmandu. 

I read Y's books most nights. She has a really rare collection. None of them are books I've seen before. And most of them are poetry. Y is a poet and you can see it in how she lives. 

One evening, I took a book about girls standing on the lawn and placed it by her bedside because I felt she should wake up to it when she returns home. Then I put it back again where Y had placed it. 

Maybe she wanted the girls on the lawn to be sat on the shelf now.

 

nothing

 there's no wound here, except, i carry my head on shoulders that are sore. it's not much. we're all sore on the inside. and so, there's no wound here.

a eulogy for Preeti Shakya

 Dear Preeti Shakya,

Today is seven days since we laid you to rest.

The send off was magical-- your swan friends showed up, did their dance as you met the river and danced some more before flying away in a flock. It was so beautiful and a fitting tribute to you, the girl who loved nature.

Here's the eulogy I wrote that Tenzi kindly read out at the prayer service:

Today you passed through a crematorium

and we were given palu-baji to eat—

ginger and flattened rice, 

a reminder that this is grief

and grief comes with a taste

that is both bland and potent

I spread out my palms 

balancing my plate that held

a fistful of baji, a lump of ginger,

and vegetables cooked without 

turmeric or spices. 

no colour 

grief has no colour—

food was served as grief today 

as you passed through a machine 

at a crematorium.

I could only stare at the plate 

resting on my palms, spread out wide 

Today, 

a year and two months 

since I held your face in sight

and just as long 

since we took that walk together around 

khastee

Let’s go, kora, I said

and you said you would 

if I promised to hold your hand

all the way.

we walked very very slowly,

we managed only one kora

I asked if you would come home 

and be with me forever.

we can grow old together, I said.

you said yes at first

and then you said, 

maybe it’s too late

you said London was now your home and you had to go home

at that moment, 

my mind must have been too dense

to fathom what you meant by home.

you meant

London was where you would go home

to yourself

Tomorrow,

you will be the dust that flies over

the surface of the ripples 

at a certain bend along the Thames,

and then in many hours 

find a new destination to rest forever

that's what you had meant 

when you said that was your home.

London, 

now your home forever.

and we, who grieve your absence,

we are the ones in transit. 

So long, Preeti didi...

My dearest Preeti,

I wanted to write you a note while you’re still with us physically. You’re still here in body with us, but at 3pm today, you will be gone. You will be enveloped in flames and they will return you to earth, and the Thames will carry you home. You will be taken to the Thames on Friday.

Tomorrow, I will become a year older. For another year, you’re still a year older than me. And next year onward, I will keep getting older than you. You, forever, will remain 48.

Right now, I feel wounded by your absence. But I’m also grateful to you for all the love you have always given me. Thank you!

You are so beautiful and you will be beautiful and kind always. And wise.

Until 3pm today, I am still allowed to speak of you in present tense. So, yes, you are one of my best childhood gifts. Thank you for always looking out for me. I love you. I love you so much. Rest easy and rest peacefully always.  

And here are some stolen lillies for a May girl.