Looking Forward to a Second Spring…Right After I Get Through the Autumn of Perimenopause

There’s a phrase I’ve heard a lot recently to describe the menopausal period: a second spring. In some ways, I like it. It’s cheerful; it’s optimistic. It’s a new fuck-it attitude, a new concept of who you are and what your body is. It suggests growth despite the fact that menopause is often associated with cessation.

That said, the first season that usually comes my mind when it comes to menopause is autumn. Or maybe winter. It’s definitely a time when the ovaries are wintering (never to see another spring).

But our lives encompass more than a particular phase of our reproductive systems—and our entry into a new era can certainly be conceptualized as spring-like. If puberty is our first spring, it makes sense that menopause would be our second.

I don’t know that I think of perimenopause as a second spring, though. When you’re actually in menopause? Sure! I’ve been working for a while to reframe in my own mind the whole post-menstruation part of life as a rebirth, renewal, and rejuvenation of the spirit.

The physical journey of getting there, though... That, honestly, feels much more autumnal to me. I guess that makes hot flashes the pumpkin spice of the perimenopausal world: widespread to the point of being a seasonal cliché.

And like autumn for all creatures, perimenopause is a time of preparation and anticipation. In perimenopause, after all, we’re encouraged to prepare, prepare, prepare for those incipient hormone drops. We’re meant to embrace weight-bearing exercise, stress-reduction efforts (…), changes in diet, and mental and emotional adjustments that will (in theory) set us up to enjoy the fabled second spring.

Instead of looking at menopause as the winter that follows perimenopause’s autumn, I’ve been trying to shift it to perimenopause being the autumn and winter and the postmenopausal days being the spring. So perimenopause is a time of preparation, yes, but also a time to grieve the summer. And then move on.

I don’t want to get to full-on menopause and then start grieving what came before. Maybe I can sweat through mourning whilst weight lifting.

These kinds of seasonal metaphors can feel tired, but I think they offer a way to both put things into perspective (seasons change) and allow us to appreciate what’s good without demanding that it be ideal (winter’s cold, yes, but it also has a beauty unlike any other time of year).

Framing things in terms of the four seasons, though, is unlikely to be universal. As I’ve tried to conceive of my perimenopausal period as an autumn, I’ve also begun to wonder about alternatives. In places where there are only two seasons, for example (usually a wet season and a dry season), what metaphors do people use in place of spring, summer, and winter? This seasonal cycle is so prevalent that even in areas where the shifting four seasons tend to be more symbolic (e.g., Texas) than well-defined (e.g., Vermont), no one has to guess at your meaning if you say you’re in the winter of your life.

How else might we conceptualize these menopause-centered stages of life? It’s easy to see why the triad of the maiden, mother, and crone came about. I realize these terms have a complicated history and mean more than one thing, but they also describe three major hormonal shifts: puberty, pregnancy, and menopause. Not everyone with a set of female sex organs goes through the middle one, of course, but often the capability for it is there. I don’t think there’s a corresponding three-part story for men. It seems to be “boy” and “man.” Fatherhood doesn’t figure into male mythology the way the major hormonal event of pregnancy does in female mythology.

Arguably that’s because women have for centuries been socially tied to parenthood in a way men have not, but I wonder if it predates the rise of patriarchy and is a way to look at the significant ways in which those three stages radically change hormones and brain development. Brains, after all, are scarily and marvelously altered during and after pregnancy. I think the only other times that such dramatic alterations occur are puberty and perimenopause.

I mean, sure, it’s terrifying to hear phrases like “significant brain alteration,” but change is a hallmark of life. It doesn’t always herald The End. I like using seasons as a way to think about perimenopause because it helps me feel that it’s temporary and also not terminal. Remodeling rather than decaying. Spring inevitably follows autumn and winter.

I’d love to hear different comparisons that evoke the same feeling, though. Please share if you have them!

Yours with some pumpkin-spice coffee and a hot flash,

That Hag

Two Autumn-y Activities for the Week Ahead:

1. Eat an apple. They’re great raw, straight from the tree or farmers’ market stall or grocery-store display. They’re also great in pie, cobbler, and tarte tatin. It’s hard to find someone who can’t enjoy at least one kind of apple, and there are varieties aplenty. Also: antioxidants, fiber, phytochemicals, and pectin.

2. Make a pumpkin-themed craft or food. Listen, I’m not particularly artistic and my home certainly isn’t decorated for fall (beyond a bowl of glittery fake gourds that I kept neglecting to put away after last autumn but have now conveniently returned to seasonal relevance), but there’s something to be said for the tangible fruit of creative labor. Pick up a pumpkin at the grocery store, paint it with something spooky or sweet, and put it outside your front door. Bake some pumpkin-themed cookies or cupcakes. Look up a pumpkin origami project. Make some orange Jell-O shots with green whipped cream. Just try to use your own hands (skills optional!) to craft a thing.