The Phoenix Diaries: The Chapter Where I Speak Fluent Perimenopausal

What nobody tells you about the water zoo, the upside-down floor, and your foot fingers.

Phoenix Diaries
Personal stories of transformation, heartbreak, and rebuilding from ground zero.

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There should be a customer service desk for women in their mid-forties.

A little kiosk. Maybe at the airport, beside the pharmacy, staffed by a lovely Irish woman named Maureen, who hands out hormone patches and emotional-support snacks.

You’d walk up and say, “Hi. My marriage ended, I lost my job, sold my house, became a nomad, and now I think my ears are itchy from the inside.”

And Maureen would nod. “Ah yes. Perimenopause. A fierce little gobshite.”

Nobody prepares you for this chapter. People tell you about hot flashes. Nobody tells you that one day you’ll walk into a room and forget why you’re there. It’s a hostage negotiation. You’ll stand there staring at the wall like a Labrador that’s seen a ghost. The mission is gone. The objective has vanished. The brain has left the chat.

Thinking hard to find the word for…. | Photo: Tanya Fraser

I was halfway through a conversation recently when I lost a word. Not an unusual word. Not something complicated. A normal everyday word, gone, evaporated. My brain looked at me and said, “Sorry, love. Best of luck.”

So I did what every woman in perimenopause does. I described the thing. You know the water zoo. The place with the fish. The fish museum. The swimming animal building.

Aquarium. The word was aquarium. Honestly, if I had a brain I’d be dangerous.

One of my favourites was a woman online trying to explain where she wanted a light fixture installed. “The upside-down floor.” The ceiling. She meant the ceiling, and every woman watching knew exactly what she meant. The upside-down floor. Perfect. No notes.

Then there are toes, or as one woman called them, “feet fingers.” Correct. Technically. And champions? Apparently they’re now “the winning people.” We’re all out here speaking fluent Perimenopausal. A beautiful new language built almost entirely from gestures, panic, and confidence. You forget the word, you point aggressively, someone eventually translates. Community. It’s what women do.

When this all started, the first thing I noticed was my body sneakingly redistributing itself. Wait, scratch that, loudly redistributing itself, mostly around the middle. Suddenly there was a belly that hadn’t RSVP’d. Nobody invited it. It just moved in, unpacked, and started paying no rent.

Now, if you’re looking to shed that perimenopause belly, I do have one tip. It’s very effective. Find your husband with another woman on your home security camera. You’ll lose ten pounds in a week. True story. Nothing kills an appetite like reviewing the footage. The shock of a marriage falling apart is, medically speaking, the most efficient weight-loss program I’ve ever been on. I don’t recommend it. The aftercare is brutal and the gym membership is your entire life. But the results? Immediate.

Meanwhile your body is running its own science experiment. One minute you’re freezing. The next you’re hotter than a rotisserie chicken, kicking off blankets, putting them back on, kicking them off again. At 2:14 in the morning you’re lying there wondering if you’ve developed a rare tropical disease. Nope. Just ovaries acting the maggot.

Then there are the heart palpitations. Nothing prepares you for lying down peacefully at night only for your heart to audition for the Kentucky Derby. I wasn’t sleeping. I was hosting horse races in my chest.

And the dry skin. Sweet suffering Jesus, there wasn’t enough moisturizer in Canada to soothe that itch. I could have bathed in it. I could have rented a tanker truck full of it, and my face would have absorbed the lot and politely asked for another.

Then came the creepy crawlies. A sensation like tiny, invisible insects crawling beneath my skin. Nobody tells you about that one. You mention it casually to another woman and she immediately says, “Oh yeah, I had that.” Like she’s discussing parking. Women are unbelievable. We can be actively falling apart and still remember someone’s birthday.

Then there are periods. Or whatever interpretation of periods we’re doing now. At this stage my cycle feels less like biology and more like weather. Forecast: partly cloudy with a chance of betrayal. There are maybe three and a half minutes each month where I trust white trousers. The rest of the time we’re all gambling.

And don’t get me started on sneezing. Ladies. You know. One violent sneeze and suddenly you’re evaluating your life choices. Nobody warned us that pelvic floors were apparently built by the lowest bidder.

The thing that amazes me most is that women navigate all of this while running businesses, raising children, caring for aging parents, managing households, surviving heartbreak, leading teams, maintaining friendships, booking dentist appointments, remembering birthdays, and somehow still replying, “Good thanks, how are you?” We’re extraordinary. Absolutely knackered. But extraordinary.

And in the middle of all this chaos, HRT arrived like a calm woman carrying a clipboard. For me, it changed everything. Nothing about this chapter is perfect. I’m still travelling with creams that require more planning than some international military operations.

I’ve organized flights around hormone refills. I’ve crossed borders carrying enough medication to look mildly suspicious. At one point I felt less like a writer and more like an international hormone smuggler.

But I’ll take it. These little creams helped me survive a season where almost everything familiar disappeared. The marriage. The job. The house. The certainty. The version of me who thought she knew exactly how life would unfold.

Somehow, while my whole life was being rebuilt from the foundations up, my body was rebuilding itself too. Maybe that’s the cosmic joke. Women spend our whole lives evolving. Puberty arrives and turns us upside down. Love changes us. Heartbreak changes us. Some of us grow babies or businesses. Some of us grow entirely new lives from the ashes of the old ones. And then, one day, our hormones gather everyone in a boardroom and announce another software update. Mandatory. Non-negotiable. Just vibes.

Honestly, I’d like a word with management.

Still, I look around at the women in my life and I’m in awe. Every one of them carrying something invisible, adapting, finding a way through. Even when we can’t remember the word for aquarium. Or ceiling. Or toes. Or whatever we were talking about.

Hang on.

What was I saying again?

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Tell me…

What's your "upside-down floor"? Drop the word your brain replaced it with.

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