Shoes for Menopause

I’m going through menopause, and if you blow me any snot or make any stupid remarks, I’ll either bitch slap you or go off on a two-day, self-pitying crying jag. I can never tell which will happen, sometimes both in sequence, sometimes I’ll just wait a day or two and do both at once. That’s a lot harder than it seems – sobbing hysterically while attempting to holler at you. There certainly seem to be a lot more fluids involved than I’m used to emitting.

And pimples. There are more pimples. I was one of those enviable teens with fairly clear skin; in my 20’s, I was fresh-faced and smooth-cheeked; in my thirties, my skin got a little drier, but here I am in my forties with a face no teenager would envy. The worst part is that these pimples have a purpose. They herald the arrival of bristly hairs. One wag calls them “misplaced eyebrow hairs.” I don’t care. I’ve plucked chickens, I’ve plucked my eyebrows for years, when I was feeling sexually experimental, I’ve plucked lower; I’ll pluck anything. It’s not the hairs that bother me, it’s the damned pimples – they hurt, I can’t get rid of them with any amount of excellent skin care, and if I pluck the stinking hairs too soon, the pimples come back and are more obvious than ever.

I suddenly understand why my mother and her cohorts always looked like they’d gotten makeovers at the undertaker’s after a certain age. Mom assures me that in a decade or so, I’ll have my skin back, it’ll just be more wrinkly. Oh, boy.

I run out of energy unexpectedly, too, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think I might have narcolepsy. I used to be able to watch popular shows on TV in the evenings, if I had time, but now, about 15 minutes after I sit down on the couch, I have to lie down, which feels r-e-a-l-l-y good. I get about 10 more minutes before my eyes start having trouble focusing, and I’m out. I snore, too. Once, my own snoring woke me up. I would’ve been embarrassed, but I was too busy checking for drool.

Then there are my teeth. My dental hygiene was admittedly haphazard as a child, more dependent upon appearances in my teens, a little better in my twenties, and really sporadic in my thirties, when I did the heavy-lifting of childcare. Hell, I was lucky to remember to comb my hair when all three kids were small, let alone brush my teeth thrice daily!

I am paying for it now. Oh, boy, am I paying for it. I have spent enough money at the dentist’s office over the last couple of years to expect lavish sexual favors from him upon demand, except that I’m too preoccupied with wondering how many of my teeth are going to enter my fifties with me. Root canals, crowns, gumline cavities, a short bout of peridontitis, and random sensitivity. A few months ago, the dreaded phrase “gum scraping” entered my life. I have avoided it, but only by having floss picks at every perching point in my daily routine, investing in several different kinds of mouthwash, and spending more on electronic and electric tooth cleaning devices in six months than I have on brassieres AND earrings in my entire life.

The menopausal mood swings are a kick, too. I keep telling myself the same thing the nurse in the delivery room said while I was undergoing a granola and whole-wheat, extra crunchy, natural delivery, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Why is this moronic, uncomforting advice ever offered to someone screaming in pain, anyway? It doesn’t work any better now than it did then, except I’m a lot less likely to bite the nearest person. Well, maybe. Then again, that sounds kind of satisfying. Except for what it might do to my teeth.

Anyway, I’m usually one of those people who rarely gets their feelings hurt; I’m pretty alert to things going haywire in other’s lives, even those close to me, and I like to think I can take a lot of nonsense and inconvenience in stride. Not any more. Now I’m hypersensitive – I get hurt when someone forgets to thank me, I get angry when one of the kids or the hubby forgets to follow through on something I asked them to do, and I feel socially marginalized, like background noise to the universe, a kind of a cosmic window fan that gets tuned out until it quits working and then you decide you really wanted to install central air after all, so you never miss the fan.

I’m tired of being nice about things, tired of making allowances for everyone else’s shortcomings, and I’m less and less likely to put up and shut up. It doesn’t matter where --in the grocery store where marketing wonks insist that goods be moved around monthly to encourage feckless spending, when some self-absorbed teenager can’t be bothered to get off his/her cell phone and wait on me as a customer, or when family members leave some disgusting mess around as if we had “staff” to handle it. I am not staff, and I don’t get paychecks or benefits for letting other people walk all over me.

My shoes are an example of my transition from Mother-as-Martyr to Menopausal Crank. I had been wearing the same sneakers for 6 years. They fit fine, but they were worn. The backs of them were chewed from when we got a Labrador retriever, the soles were starting to flap pretty badly, and the edges were cracking off . My shoes didn’t have laces; they closed with Velcro, which was full of lint from the washer and dryer. The right shoe was permanently dark and showed extra wear on the outside from rubbing up against the car foot well next to the accelerator pedal, reflecting all the time I’ve spent shuttling kids to and from events, driving to the doctor’s office, picking up youngsters with bloody noses or sudden, school-day attacks of the flu, diarrhea, or vomiting. My sneaks were worn out from 20,000 trips to the grocery store, the pharmacy, the hardware store, and Christmas shopping, and from trudging up and down stairs with loads of laundry, groceries, and presents. I put up with them because the kids needed school shoes, and other expenses seemed more urgent.

I was sitting in the dentist’s chair a few months ago, looking at my shoes. My mouth was propped open with various implements, and I wondered if that was how boa constrictors feel when they’re attempting to swallow goats. The dentist and his assistant were taking a pause from rummaging around in my mouth as if it were a sale bin at Marshall Field’s, and I became obsessed with the symbolism of my shoes.

I thought about all the things I’ve mentioned above, and I felt a crying jag looming. Then I got mad at myself because I don’t like self-pity. Breathing deeply around the 42 pounds of stainless steel and rubber lodged in my mouth, I resolved to take my feet out and romance them. I’d buy them some date shoes, some fun shoes, some ridiculously feminine slippers, and some practical grown up work shoes. I might even buy them some cheap, slappy flip flops and a new pair of sneakers. Maybe even some Name Brand sneakers that light up or have flashy designs on them, or something like that. This time, other people would have to wait and put their feet on the back burner, metaphorically speaking, so that I and my feet could feel happy and cherished.

And I did. I have purple suede flats with rhinestones (on sale, I’m not completely out of control), turquoise blue moccasins with beading, two pairs of sensible, low-heeled work-type shoes, a pair of absurd fuschia slip on scuffs with gold embellishments and embroidered flowers, a pair of “spa” rubber flip-flops, and… another pair of sneakers. They’re not flashy, though. In fact, they’re exactly the same as the old ones, just new. After all, I got good wear out of them...

... didn’t I?