There are days when I wake up with the wrong mindset. Last week I had 2 of them. One of the things I’m trying to be aware of when I feel like that is my cycle.
Nowadays, how I feel often depends on cycle days, arghhhh. Cycles used to be 27 days, but currently they fluctuate from 25 days one month and 31 days the next, or something in between. Of course, I can’t blame that mindset all on my cycles, although I feel like a “walking hormone” sometimes.
My own messed up self-image certainly plays a part too, regularly. Although I am a strong believer of ”the right mindset” that doesn’t seem to work all the time. There are days that I look in the mirror and think, HUH? Who is that? Also often caused by sleeping too short at night, too much worrying, less attention (or time) for proper nutrition, changing hormones, all of which on their own, and in combination with each other cause insecurities.
After the age of forty, we know our bodies fairly well, right? I don’t quite understand yet how my body is changing me into this “hormonster” on certain days of the month. What I do know, and I try never to forget, is that the way I look at what is beautiful and what is not is completely shaped by society. 
Sometimes it’s difficult when you look at a tired and pale face in the mirror image, not to think something negative. We all have good and bad days, weeks, months, years. But because we don’t look like a fashion model coming off the cover of a magazine doesn’t make us less beautiful.
Your feelings are valid. You have every right to feel whatever emotion you want. You aren’t being dramatic. You aren’t over exaggerating. You’re feeling. And that’s okay.
Today life felt a little lighter (it changes day by day). I opened the box brought by the postman the night before, and instantly my mood brightened. Fashion is fun and yes, what a pretty dress can do to a woman. Enthusiastically I decided to take some self-love selfies with me in this pretty pink dress. And meanwhile, let my thoughts go over the past few days, weeks, months. A lot is going on, in the world, and my head. The corona damage is omnipresent. Equality is being fought for. People around me are sick (mentally and physically); some never get better; some will die. Enough to worry about, on a global and personal level.
While many concerns are undeniably present, I cannot seem to let go of another precarious feeling—a vague sense, that something is wrong. A feeling which I have never had before in my life. Thanks to the knowledge and experience that I share with friends and women through this platform, I recognize it as a perimenopausal symptom. It’s the “down and depressed” one. By feeling like this, I can give it a name, and it becomes more factual. This phase is no longer one from a biology booklet. This phase is about me, it’s about my body. I can fight it or I can accept it and try to embrace it. The beautiful thing about such a day with a wrong mindset is that the day after, the air is often cleared again. And on those days I look in the mirror and see the woman I am today. I can look at my changed self with love and I know, by experience, it’s all in the right mindset.
Pink dress by Needle and Thread.
