What Is a Woman’s Life After 40?
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
Terri Lee Ryan has built a writing, media production and speaker platform. As a lifestyle author, TV producer, career coach and advocate, she brings underrepresented stories to a mainstream audience.
Life for a woman is complicated. It seems we have more to do than our male counterparts. We are the mother, the wife, the caregiver, the dog walker, the executive, the planner of vacations, the cook, the lover, and the leader of the family structure. We have unspoken responsibilities and are depended on more than we get credit for. No doubt, women are the best at multitasking, as they are born for it. It is in their DNA.
Then, one day, you are in your forties, sorting through your closet and looking for your favorite summer sandals, when your heart starts pounding and you break out in a sweat, something that has never happened to you before. You instinctively fear you are having a heart attack. Thankfully, it is not a heart attack. It is just your first hot flash! It appears out of nowhere, yet it is the beginning of the hormonal cycle called perimenopause, which simply means you are headed for menopause sometime within the next ten years. In the meantime, your hormones are all over the place. Some days, they are raging, and your sex drive is on overload. Other times, you forget all about sex, as if it were never important to you.
The panic
You panic because you do not have time in your life for a hormonal imbalance, and you think, “This cannot be happening to me.” You are too young. You still have kids in grammar school. You think menopause is for older women, so you cannot be that person. Well, the fact is, you are. You are not old. You are simply going through the beginning of menopause, when life becomes different.
Having children later than our parents did means we really are dealing with everything at once. Our parents are living much longer, our kids are much younger, our jobs are more demanding, and holding on to a comfortable lifestyle is more challenging than ever due to the rising cost of everything. Then there is AI, which is changing the way we live and do business. Oh, and yes, maintaining our relationship with our husband, significant other, or the father of our children is another challenge.
Dealing with the madness
Of course, it is more than a hormonal imbalance that makes you feel as though, on some days, you cannot deal with the stress of your life. Everything appears to be closing in on you, with demands coming from everyone around you. You know that kind of day when everyone needs your help at the same time.
Your mother calls crying and looking for someone to talk to because she is lonely. Your daughter has just been stopped by the police because she was driving without a license. Your husband has just learned that his department is being downsized and that he may lose his job. Your air conditioning unit has stopped producing cool air during a summer heat wave. All of this is happening when your hormonal changes have left you with a pounding migraine headache, making you feel as though someone has placed your skull in a vise and twisted it tightly.
Fortunately, this does not happen every day. Yet, when it does, it feels as though we are going mad because we cannot solve all these issues for the people we care about most. When this happens, our own mental health suffers because there are no easy solutions. It is a process. It is called life, and sometimes life becomes overwhelming, leaving us consumed with fear. The good news is that it happens to everyone. Sometimes, we just need a friend to talk to who can calm us, a therapist, a minister, or some good pain medication to take the intense pain away, at least for the migraine headache.
Learning how to manage your stress
Learning how to better manage stress seems to be the most obvious solution. But how do you regain your sense of calm when your world is seemingly collapsing? How are you able to step back and deal with the issues? Truly, it is not easy. Everywhere you look these days, there is chaos, not just in your personal life. We live in a world filled with many changes that have been accelerated by technology. It is simply much more complicated nowadays to navigate life. This is something we can all agree on.
Managing stress is an art. For most of us, it is a learned trait. However, I have always admired the few people I have met over the years who appear to handle everything they encounter with ease, as if they were born with a calm soul. Certainly, that person was never me. I was the one with the anxious mother who passed her anxiety on to me as a child. I bit my fingernails until first grade. I have had to learn how to manage my stress, and some days, I am better at it than others.
Drinking martinis
There was a time in my life when I dealt with stress by drinking vodka martinis. It was my favorite cocktail at the end of the day. I was never a big drinker. I never liked the taste of alcohol. I would always mix my vodka with grapefruit or orange juice to diminish the taste. As the years went on and the layers of responsibility accumulated, I drank my vodka with less juice and ice. Straight martinis with salty olives became my preferred cocktail. My former husband was once a bartender and made me four ounce martinis that eventually led me to rehab for alcohol. It was not his fault. I liked my martinis a bit too much.
So, I learned how to manage my stress without alcohol. It seems that once I started to stop and acknowledge how I felt about painful experiences in my life, rather than operating on autopilot, doing whatever everyone else wanted, and ignoring my own feelings, I became better at dealing with stress.
Learning how to say no
The definition of madness is making the same mistake over and over again. Most of us have been there, hoping for a different result from the same situation. I believe most of us are optimists and feel the need to make something work, sometimes at all costs. This includes being in a toxic marriage, staying in an unfulfilling job, or being used as a scapegoat by a parent. Many of us fall into a pattern of living with the madness in our lives rather than saying no. The reality is that saying no is difficult for many of us. At least, it was for me, as I had become accustomed to navigating rough waters and helping others through their storms, often at my own expense.
The freedom gained from learning how to say no is amazing. We do not need to fix everyone else’s issues. It is enough that we are ourselves. It is an important passage in life that seems to begin when we finally reach a point where we can live for ourselves. With menopause approaching, the window for having children has all but closed, our hormones have changed how we carry our weight, and mood swings may become more common. Yet, we need to finally be able to look at our lives, consider who we are and what we want, and learn how to focus on our own needs.
The reward
Our husbands, children, parents, friends, and jobs may still be the same, yet we are different. We are on this beautiful journey of learning to love ourselves, look at ourselves in the mirror, and know that we are going to be okay. When we love ourselves, the acceptance of who we are and the wonderful possibilities ahead for our own growth and happiness are endless.
Once we learn how to love ourselves unconditionally and without expectations, we can begin to truly embrace the day to day issues with the belief that everything is going to be okay. We will make it, no matter what comes our way. We determine how we feel, rather than allowing others to decide how we should feel. We make decisions based on our own experiences, not on public opinion or fear. The stronger we are emotionally, the better wives, mothers, and daughters we can be, and the more fulfilling our lives will become.
We have earned our right, as women entering menopause, to know that we are indeed fearless, strong, and self aware. It is okay if we are a little mad, drink too many martinis on occasion, or break out in a hot sweat. You will look back one day and see that these are the best days of your life! Make your time count!
Read more from Terri Lee Ryan
Terri Lee Ryan, Lifestyle Author, Speaker, Career Coach
As a lifestyle author, TV producer, career coach, and advocate, Terri has brought underrepresented stories to a mainstream audience. From her documentary, " I Married a Crossdresser" airing on SKY UK to a finalist for two of her projects in at the New York TV Film Festival, she has championed women over 40 and the transgender community with humor, honesty and heart. A popular writer, she has been a featured columnist and blogger for Chicago Tribune -ChicagoNow, Today's Chicago Woman magazine, The Huffington Post, Sister House, and Frock sites. She is the author of Life is one Big To-Do List: A Woman's Life After 40 and a thought leader on the transgender community with her podcast Shades of Gender.
