So many questions, so few answers.  The best giver of answers seems to be the experience itself.  Time.  Time to think, time to examine, time to go inward and ask all of the hard questions...the ones we are too busy to answer most of our life.  Now we have to face them.  What are the qualities that are true and withstand the test of time and age?  Is it the fact that I once could “multi-task” and make others rich from my hard work and long hours?  It is fact that by body could be used to house another human being?  Is it that for over 20 years I have proven to myself and my husband that I can be faithful, flexible and stable?  If this is the “me” I once was, who is the “new me” going to be and probably the biggest question of all, will I like her?

 I am grateful for the experiences I have had this first half of my life.  I felt honored to have another spirit (my son) reside within my hidden walls and bring him to life.  I am proud that he looks to me now for insight and comparison of thought.  I know that his existence was the single most important think I have ever done in this lifetime.  I am glad to know him.  I am proud to say that he came from me. 

 I am grateful for the man who I call my husband for the past 20 years is still with me.  Waiting for the metamorphosis, standing by me and lovingly being patient.  I am grateful for the years of experience we have shared and how we have watched each other grow and develop.  I am proud that I am a good wife, contrary to every example I was shown as I grew up.

 I cannot honestly say I am grateful for this portion of my journey because it leaves me feeling confused and resentful for things and times past.  However, the hope that I will get to other side of these transformations a better woman, a stronger woman, a woman with more understanding of herself than ever before, keeps me walking forward, searching, examining, questioning, wide-eyed with expectations for answers that I know will not all come from books or doctors or outsiders, but from within myself.  Maybe menopause is the most solitary journey any woman takes.  But maybe, just maybe, it will be the most rewarding because the answers, the true answers, lie deep in the heart of spirit of us all individually and patience with ourselves will encourage those answers to surface.

 I will come out the other side of menopause...I know I will.  All women before me have.  It never tore down successfully the inner will and strength of a woman.  It challenged it, sometimes daily, but I don’t think it ever stayed the victor for long.  I will continue to fight against my unseen enemy one question at a time, one different path at a time, one remedy at a time, one day at a time, until I can stand in front of menopause and yell back at it......I WON, YOU LOST.  I WAS STRONGER THAN ANYTHING YOU THREW AT ME.  I AM, ONCE AGAIN, AS I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN....THE VICTOR!

P.S.  Anyone who would like the name of an excellent book about herbal subsitutions to the “traditional HRT drugs” or the name of the Chinese Herbalist that has helped me through this, please feel free to email me.  I would be glad to share this information with you.  I know it will help.
Chandler38@msn.com

Menopause Fiction by Terry Odell

Excerpt from the book, "Burn Fat for Fuel", by Donna Michaels-Surface

PMDD by Dr. Madeline Behrendt

Losing My Social Skills Along With My Hormones: by Janice A. Farringer

The HERSTORY of Bones by Dr. Madeline Behrendt

The Pause that refreshes by Dottie LeMieux

Humor Me, Please By Patricia Older

Here's To Your Health by Caryl  Frawley

Articles by Judith Paley, MD, Natural Progesterone

Post from Cammie

Read another good post from Joy

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Osteoporosis article from the Women's Health Network

Woman's Mind Sets Her Menopause
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Menopause Research Project Probes Effects of HRT by Elaine Sanford, writer for the Regional Medical Center at Memphis