Men-on-Pause: How I Woke Up One Day as a Complete Stranger (and She Was NOT Fun at Parties)

I went to bed as me and woke up as... Well, let's just call her "Discount Store Me." Everything—and I mean EVERYTHING—had changed overnight. It was like someone had switched out my entire operating system while I was unconscious, and the new version came with more bugs than a beta software release.

My mind? Foggier than San Francisco in August. My energy? Gone. Vanished. Like it had packed its bags and moved to out without leaving a forwarding address. My bones? Aching like I'd been hit by a truck driven by Father Time himself. Sleep? What's sleep? And don't even get me started on the anxiety. Suddenly I was worrying about things that had never crossed my mind before. Did I lock the door? Is that weird noise the house settling or is someone breaking in? Will I get fired from my job? Am I doing enough? Why did that cashier look at me funny? Was it something I said? Did I say anything? 

But the real kicker? My poor husband went from being the love of my life to... well, let's just say I had about as much desire for romance as I did for a root canal. The man could have shown up looking like Pedro Pascal holding a lottery ticket and a chocolate cake, and I would have been like, "Meh, can you move? You're blocking the TV."

I kept telling anyone who would listen (which, let's be honest, was mostly my reflection in the mirror because I couldn't remember if I'd already told this story): "I'm not myself! I don't know what's wrong with me!"

Meanwhile, my body decided it was time to start its own little science experiment called "Let's See How Much Weight We Can Gain While Eating the Exact Same Food and Doing the Exact Same Exercise." Spoiler alert: The answer was "A LOT."

I was absolutely miserable. Here I was, a woman who prided herself on being sharp, on top of her game, the kind of person who could juggle multiple tasks while telling you in detail about some movie I saw. Now I can't remember words mid-sentence. I'd be talking and suddenly my brain would just... stop. Like it had gone out for coffee and forgotten to come back...brutal! "So I went to the... the... you know, the place with the... THING!" became my signature communication style. Very professional during important meetings, let me tell you.

And the tasks! Oh, the tasks I would forget! I'd confidently say, "I'll take care of that," and then five minutes later it was like the conversation had been wiped from my memory with a cosmic eraser. My husband would ask, "Did you call about the thing?" and I'd stare at him like he was speaking Latin.

Finally, I dragged myself to a doctor, expecting them to tell me I had a tumor or that my brain had been invaded by aliens. Instead, I got the most anticlimactic diagnosis ever:"You're in perimenopause."WHAT?! Hold up. Time out. I thought menopause was just hot flashes and buying a bigger fan. Nobody told me it came with the complete "Everything You Thought You Knew About Your Body" starter pack! Where were the hot flashes anyway? I was sitting there waiting to spontaneously combust like a human torch, but apparently my body decided to skip that particular party favor and go straight to the "Let's Make Her Crazy in Every Other Way" package.

Come to find out, women experience menopause like snowflakes—no two are exactly alike, but they're all kind of a pain in the ass. Who knew?

The doctor's brilliant solution? Hormones. "Here, take these pills and hope for the best." It was like being handed a mystery box from a game show where the prize could be your sanity back or three more months of feeling like you're living in someone else's body.

But here's the thing that really gets me: WHY DON'T WOMEN TALK ABOUT THIS MORE?

My mother never said a WORD about menopause. Not one peep. I had more detailed conversations about algebra in high school than I ever had about what my lady parts would eventually put me through. Thanks, Mom. Really appreciate that heads up. Would have loved a memo titled "Hey, Your Body's Going to Stage a Hostile Takeover Sometime in Your 40s and into your 50s"

It's like there's this secret women's club where we all agree to suffer in silence and let the next generation figure it out through trial and error. Well, I'm breaking that code of silence right here, right now.

The journey has been... let's call it "educational." Lots of trial and error. Mostly ERROR, if I'm being honest. But you know what? Things are finally looking up! I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's not an oncoming train for once.

My libido is slowly remembering it exists (my husband is very appreciative of this development). My brain fog is lifting (I remembered where I put my keys yesterday, but I still lose my phone daily). And I'm starting to feel like myself again—just a slightly updated version with better boundaries and less patience for nonsense. 

To all my ladies going through this wild ride: You're not crazy. You're not broken. You're just experiencing the world's most inconvenient software update. And yes, it takes FOREVER to install and sometimes crashes your entire system, but eventually, you'll be running on a newer, wiser operating system.

Just maybe warn your daughters about this whole thing, okay? Let's break the cycle of hormonal surprise attacks.