No More Hot Flashes!

OFFICE MEMO

Date:     July 9, 2018

To:         Our Creator

From:    Women Everywhere

Re:         The “M” Word

I’m a big fan of both you and the great job you did with the world and with us. (Not an easy task, right?) I know you’ve taken some criticism on some things and a lot of people think that tonsils, appendix and wisdom teeth were a mistake. (They probably seemed like good ideas at the time). Sometimes things just don’t always work out exactly how you figure. But we need to talk. This one is a big deal. It affects all the women in the world at some point in their lives. It can even affect our quality of life. It’s the dreaded “M” word. Yup, I think you’ve gotten this menopause thing all wrong (no disrespect intended). We should be rewarded at this point in our lives, not punished.
This stage of life and this memo is not for the faint of heart (and probably not for most men, sorry!). My friends and I are living the “M” word. We have endured the cost, inconvenience and discomfort of hundreds of menstrual cycles. Yes, hundreds!  Our periods have interrupted our lives – even embarrassed us at times but ultimately we were thankful for them because they allowed for one of our biggest blessings in life – our children. It was all worth it. We are thankful for bodies that functioned properly. Very thankful.
Then came menopause. Hot flashes that sometimes cause a full sweat to break out – regardless of where we are. Sleep that evades us. Weight gain, irritability and mood swings. This is not a stage for sissies. And there aren’t a lot of great choices to minimize these symptoms. Mostly we grin and bear it. It’s part of life.
I’m retired now and I have time to think about these things. I’ve thought about how it should really play out. We really need some changes. I propose the following:
No hot flashes. Get rid of the hot flashes. Our husbands will even appreciate this one. No one likes their covers ripped off in the middle of the night and our biggest marital dispute these days is about the air conditioner temperature setting. If our bodies truly need to show us a little sign that our hormones are out of whack, lose the hot flashes – just give us an endorphin rush. In fact, release the entire happy hormone family – endorphins, dopamine and serotonin. Make us feel happy instead of miserable. We would all welcome an euphoric rush every so often. Maybe even look forward to it. Beats the heck out of a hot flash. This could tie into the mood swing and irritability factors, too. Eliminate it all in one fell swoop. Done.
Let us sleep. Please. Instead of sleeplessness, which incidentally is a form of torture, let us have the best sleep of our lives. It would be like a reward for what we put our bodies through with pregnancy, childbirth and nursing. We’ve earned it. Seriously.
Replace that weight gain with weight loss. We all know that our biggest wish in life (okay, maybe after good health for our family) is that we could eat anything we’d like and not gain weight. I have spent some serious time fantasizing about this. Let’s make menopause that stage in life where excess weight drops off magically. It seems to appear without logical explanation, so it’s not too far-fetched to think it could drop off the same way. This really needs to go to the top of the list. Not only would we look good and be happy, we’d be healthier. I see no upside to the weight gain scenario, and likewise no downside to the weight loss. It’s a win-win.
Give us the best complexion we’ve ever had. We went through puberty and acne-related problems once. We don’t need to do it again and frankly, this one is just kinda mean. Same thing with hair suddenly growing in places it shouldn’t be. Stop it. Definitely not cool.
We aren’t unappreciative. We all appreciate the fact that you decided that our periods should actually stop at some point. It’s just the after-effects of it that we’d like you to look at. If you want us to stop reproducing at a certain age (again, all for that!) maybe think about stopping our guys from reproducing, too. That’s fair, right? Give them their own change of life stage.

It might seem like a lot to ask – a lot of big changes – but we feel that these are reasonable requests. And we think we’ve earned them.
Think about it please. And one last request. If you go forward with the change of life stage for men, would you mind adding a few hot flashes?