Thursday 26 February 2009
The last 36 years have just been a diversion
Contemplating, as one must at my age, the menopause (I shall be fifty this year, so it is something of a hot topic—pun intended), I happened upon a new angle from which to consider this transition: as the end of a temporary state, during which one’s true personality has been submerged. An article on the Guardian women’s page (where else?) quotes one Jane Polden, a psychotherapist: “She’s felt overwhelmed, controlled almost, by this hormonal surge ... and now it’s draining away, and she can work out who she is, and who she wants to be.” The fertile years have been a distraction. It’s an attractive idea.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
My father in law said something similar at his 70th birthday speech: he was glad to have passed into old age (except he said it more gracefully). Maybe 50 isn't so old.
Brian Aldiss has a nice short story about selecting an astronaut crew for a (long) Mars mission: they were all to be old men (this was in the old days when astronauts were naturally male) with their hormones burnt out.
Post a Comment