And Just Like That

‘You’ve reached menopause,’ declares my young endocrinologist, her face covered by a mask and plastic visor, eyes glued religiously to her monitor. I am seated behind a strip of yellow tape on the ground, the two-meter social distance that I must not trespass. ‘No way,’ I thought to myself, menopause did not arrive the way I’d expected it to. No soft-launch, no proper farewell from the uterus, only one random period over half a year ago and it’s fizzled to nothing ever since. I am barely 48 and my 52-year-old friend is still busy stocking up on pads now and then. But I shouldn’t feel too surprised, given my age. I cannot really read the doctor’s screen but I assume it being a terrifyingly long lab report extracted fresh from my veins. She examines my bloodwork with the voice of an automated AI, analyzing my health records and naming each glitch she’s fixed for me and how. There is no reason not to trust a medical professional’s judgement.

And just like that, my uterus has left the chat. Poof! No more worrying about blood stains in public, no more splurging on tampons and pads. But if I was honest to myself, it also feels as if someone just stole something precious out of my body, leaving behind a permanent dent. Menopause is almost like puberty played in reverse, except without the amount of pep talk you get as a teenager from anxious parents and school teachers, usually years before you notice the slightest change in your body. ‘Wear a bra,’ I remember being showered with advice during sex ed. Or, ‘here’s a step-by-step origami guide to folding a pad,’ alongside a checklist of tips for self-defense.

In the world of art and literature (by cis-het men specifically),  teenage girls’ bodies are either sexualized as objects of desire or reduced as symbols of divinity, rendering puberty a fleeting episode filled with soft breasts popping out like fresh buns from the oven, the thrill of welcoming your first period, or hairless thighs gleaming beneath pleated skirts. In reality, all she gets in her early teens is this: god-knows-how-many episodes of body horror, throbbing pain in the breasts, feelings of disgust and unsolicited looks from creepy guys. There is nothing fun about being 14, I swear to god. And while teenagers get their Puberty for Dummies playbook, middle-aged women are left with no support at all. You’re sent into a void of complete isolation and, before you realize, you are all alone in an unrehearsed battle with illness, indifference and the uncertainties of the world.

What happens to the empty houses of a ghost town, the inventory of a retired factory, the morning after the apocalypse? When menopause kicks in and the uterus stops functioning, your head spirals into a frenzy of thoughts. Are your ovaries now dead or alive, clinically speaking? Does everyone feel bone-dry down there … or not completely? What is ‘normal’ supposed to feel like for a woman of this age, and will cobwebs start growing on your face, turning your hair grey overnight like a wicked witch? You then realize, all of a sudden, that nobody’s ever taught you what menopause really is, other than TV commercials trying to sell you remedies for insomnia, irritability and hot flashes. Nobody gives a damn. You then consult the internet, of course, although you’d want to limit yourself to the 3 closest friends of your same age. You certainly aren’t posting it on Facebook. The shame is real.

It is funny how ‘menopause’ is thrown around as a slur for female celebrities, too. ‘Look at her, dried up and still showing cleavage,’ they’d say, as if anyone actually has access to an X-ray of her reproductive organs. In this sense, menopause is more of a taboo than sex! Everyone knows that it hits somewhere around 50, give or take 10, but it is precisely because of this decade of an age range that nobody knows who’s currently drowning in hot flashes and who’s still ovulating. So we happily play along with no questions asked. I tried talking to the older women in my family but my mom and sister apparently have different medical histories from mine, and my close friends have yet to reach the threshold.

Actually, I hold the theory that menopause is designed to be mysterious. The best way to disguise oneself amongst other prey is to hide your physical traits, like how mammalian breasts remain plump even when they’re not breastfeeding, and your ovulation cycles and estrogen levels are never written on your forehead—for that reason! Historically, female animals deemed past their reproductive prime were at risk of being killed by male predators. So you could say, in a way, that our ancestors developed the extraordinary trait of obscuring their physical conditions for the good of humanity. If the predator cannot tell which one is ready to breed, they might just let everyone live another day.

That being said, modern society is giving women a very lenient extension. The ultimatum for marriage used to be capped at 30 (after which you’re doomed), but now, as you reach your 40s and 50s, you are automatically rewarded a new perk known as the MILF card. I am grateful for this paradigm shift, but a woman will continue to be judged more by her ovaries than age because the ability to ovulate is seen as synonymous with sexiness and natural lubrication. Even if women are looking younger than their age now that everyone has the wardrobe of a late-millennial and access to all sorts of quirky plastic surgery, what ultimately contributes to female solidarity across generations is the need to masquerade their impending menopause as well as to stay relevant in the dating market. Age might not be a taboo anymore, but the abdication of your period certainly is. Your sex appeal isn’t written on your face anymore. It is marked on the shelf life of your ovaries. Maybe women should start replacing their Tinder profiles with their pelvis ultrasound and call it a day. My friend Nina once told me how her period remains completely regular—good for her—but have we now entered an era of menstrual fetish? 

So, what does the M word actually feel like? It clearly isn’t just about menstruation (this is merely the pre-show PSA), it has more to do with the invisible mechanics of your ovaries, the way it sends your brain encrypted messages like the weirdest factory workers in the world. 

‘Hey, we’re ovulating! Do you not need the egg this time? We’ve prepped it anyway!’ 

‘Never mind then, expect delivery in 2 days. We’re packing things up. Are you sure you really won’t use the egg?’

‘Alright, mission complete … Here comes your Period ProMax. Please sign here!’ 

And when this factory stops delivering the same ‘product’ like it has for 20-something years, it feels as if you are cut off from a pen friend. At first, you can still imagine the silent gears of an old machine grinding inside your tummy, but soon accept that your pal has officially ghosted you, even though their spirit is still parked somewhere within your body, sucked into a vortex of nothingness. The factory stops sending you signals, and you do not bother thinking about it anymore. The next thing you know, you lose even the urge to flirt with random strangers on dating apps. I haven’t been active for so long that I got logged out of my accounts. I no longer want to touch anyone’s body, nor do I desire to be touched. I wonder if I have achieved some kind of a spiritual enlightenment where you wake up one random morning just to find yourself metamorphosed into a Buddhist monk chanting sutras in a room full of incense, or transformed into a cat lady looking after stray animals, unleashed from the libido and worldly desires once held dear to her.

This new version of me, or rather, the void hollowing my lower abdomen, gives me a flashback to 40 years ago when my body still felt under control, my skin was healthy and pores were clear. I used to think that a child’s body was the default way a body ought to look, and that my skin would always remain as delicate, with no visible pores and grease. Before puberty showed up to ruin everything, there was a time in childhood when I stood before the mirror of my antique wooden wardrobe, wearing a sheer white dress lined with delicate blue flowers, staring at my oval face mounted with sparkling eyes like round diamonds. I used to look at my own reflection and offer the girl in the mirror a generous smile.

It is not a part of my wish to be reborn though, nor am I trying to time travel back to childhood. In fact, the idea of something being born, something popping out of my body, is scary. I simply want to turn the clock back, remembering the physical touch of the purest version of myself, skin flawless as a boiled egg freshly relieved of its tarnished shell. 

Living alone in Tamsui, Taiwan, I feel waves of anxiety running through my body sometimes, and I’d bury my face in my plush otter for a moment of relief. It feels as if my 6-year-old self, the girl who got her first stuffed kangaroo, has returned. 

When I was in graduate school, I was weeping in my therapist’s office over some ridiculous drama with an ex and she asked, with a tone of judgement, ‘Aren’t you way past the age of owning toys?’ after I showed her one of the small, standing plush otters that resided in my handbag. ‘What is wrong with dolls,’ I thought to myself, if I needed one to fall asleep? In fact, the otter population in my apartment has multiplied from two to over a dozen over the years. On quiet nights when my bedroom echoes with silence, I like to curl my body up around one of my otters, sinking entirely into its furry torso. ‘Oh, little Otter,’ I’d murmur, running my fingers through its silky texture, head resting comfortably on my pillow—another guardian animal to protect me from harm.

I instantly realize how my body still remembers this sensation although I haven’t really felt it for years. When I was 12, I used to enjoy slipping under the covers in underwear when the grown-ups were away, acting as if my duvet was a ball gown, just to enjoy the royal glamour of a princess that real life never allowed. It was an instinctive feeling of euphoria—with absolutely nothing to do with sex, only the tactile sensation of my thighs brushing against the coolness of the blanket.

Now that my physical self is clear of worldly desires, my heart still longs for something more profound, someone I have yet to encounter. With ovarian troubles gone, I continue to grapple with the same old yearning for romantic love. If it is considered pathetic for a middle-aged woman to role play a royal ballerina in her bedroom, what would it mean, if she were to admit, that a little girl still lives in the deepest chambers of her aging body?